


Endearment and Enmity

by tinfoiljones



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: CRNA!Katsuya, Eventual Romance, M/M, Nods to season zero and the manga, Seto Kaiba has no idea what Demisexual is, Vague fourth wall foresight, mokuba is a still gremlin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-01-15 18:37:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 42,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18504739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinfoiljones/pseuds/tinfoiljones
Summary: When you're literally married to the person you despise.





	1. Enmity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh.
> 
> Title: Endearment and Enmity
> 
> Rating: T-M depending on chapter, M overall
> 
> Summary: When you're literally married to the person you despise.
> 
> Warnings: Homosexual relationships,vulgar words and adult situations.
> 
> Author's Note: I don't know why I wrote this.

**Prologue: Enmity**

He was no idiot. Now, he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box either, and admittedly he was late bloomer in the garden of maturity; but by no means was he a stupid, unintelligent or unreasonable man. However, for the love of God, he sure did feel like the biggest moron in the world while staring at the gold band wrapped around his finger like a tiny house arrest monitor.

He'd made the biggest mistake in his life. He'd gotten into one of those obligatory situations worthy of a sitcom or romantic comedy where he'd made a very big life decision as a long-term solution for a short-term problem. Every second leading up to the marriage was soaked in dread and doubt, but only when it was finalized and there was no going back did the full weight of his poor decision hit him.

He had proverbially just sold his soul to the devil.

Or rather, his hand in marriage.

"What's on your mind?" Speak of the devil. Seto Kaiba, his… spouse was sitting at his desk, typing away at whatever project or document he was working on this time. He didn't bother moving his eyes from the screen of his computer as he asked the question, nor did his voice waver from its regular unwavering monotone. The brunette wasn't in his usual overdramatic attire of a white trench coat and ankle/wrist band combination, but rather his 'moderate', but still kind of ridiculous with context, white suit set.

Jonouchi rolled his eyes slightly "Oh, nothing  _dear_." He replied calmly, although clearly sarcastic his tone held no humor. Mostly because of overwhelming discontent that he managed to keep to himself. While his… spouse, was dressed business formal, he leaned more on business casual with a dark red collared button-up shirt with bright red pinstripes, tucked into his black slacks held up by a dark brown belt.

"I somehow doubt that, Katsuya." Kaiba droned and the very sound of his voice grated against his already peeved off nerves.

"Would you please not call me that, Kaiba." He almost snapped, but it came out as a huff when he crossed his arms and turned a stern glare to the CEO.

"It is your given name." The brunette stated in an as-a-matter-of-fact fashion, although it just ended up sounding very condescending whether or not it was intended.

"Just call me Jonouchi." Although he didn't have a relationship with his father to speak of, he still preferred being called by the surname he'd inherited from him over his first name. No one ever called him by that except parents and sister, and to hear it from Kaiba just made it all the more cringe worthy.

"That isn't your name any more."

"Legally, Kaiba."

"Legally you're Kaiba too."

"Whatever." It was a juvenile retort, but it was hard to argue with someone who's entire life was dedicated to being ahead of everyone else and was too tired to try. "When are we heading back to the mansion anyways? It's already eleven, and it takes me at least three hours of dry sobbing into my pillow to fall asleep." His joke, as dry and bitter as it was, didn't get a laugh or smirk or any reaction that wasn't cold indifference.

Kaiba finally looked up from his computer screen over to him "Another half an hour and we can call it a night." he explained calmly, although Jonouchi had already received that explanation over two hours ago.

"Urgh." He groaned and leaned his head back in frustration, arms still firmly crossed over his broad chest "I swear you're part bat."

His… spouse, responded to this comment "Are you saying that because I work late at night in a dark office?" The brunette was pretty nocturnal with his work habits, and for some reason never flipped the lights on in his office no what hour of the day or night it was; Jonouchi had only his phone and the glow of Kaiba's computer to see with.

Jonouchi scoffed "No, I'm saying that because you always bust my balls." Still his asshole of a… spouse, didn't laugh at that joke either. And some people wondered why Jonouchi hated him so much. Of course bribing him into marrying him didn't help either. You know what, he probably would spend three hours of whatever would be left of the night once they got back to the mansion dry sobbing into his pillow, contemplating his mistakes.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Yes Kaiba and Jonouchi are married in this chapter, and this is approximately seven years after the events of The Dark Side of Dimensions. And no, Kaiba and Jonouchi, even though they are hitched to each other, they are by no means in love with each other at this point. Jonouchi hates him, and Kaiba is neutral towards him. It's grudging respect at best.


	2. Context

**Chapter 1: Context**

Seto Kaiba was not the relationship kind of guy, he didn't have the time or even desire to date. Now, the opportunity to get married actually presented itself very often; especially after he turned the legal marrying age of eighteen. Business men constantly tried convincing him to marry their daughters.

Now, Kaiba understood that it was a common practice - but that didn't stop his distaste for it. He didn't understood why fellow tycoons wouldn't bother to groom their daughters to be heirs right from the beginning, rather than wait for a potential son-in-law to marry them off to. It was as much of a waste of time and potential gamble as it was disrespectful to the 'fairer sex'. He always declined these offers because if he would be married to someone, it would be with someone who did not let someone else make decisions on their behalf, and because he just didn't have any interest in women.

Seto Kaiba was far too self-assured to be ashamed of his sexuality because of something as trivial and meaningless as social stigma, but he considered such a thing a private and personal matter and didn't feel the need to make it public. However, the constant pressure to find a partner was getting tiring after seven years - now twenty-five, the hounding from other CEO's only got worse, his constant turning down of arranged marriages had caused a lot of strained relationships, and sometimes even cut ties with other companies. Many of these businesses were stockholders and sometimes sold their stock, resulting in Kaiba Corp losing some value.

The longer he stayed a bachelor the more trouble he seemed to meet. So the most effective solution was to get legally married to someone so the other business men would have no reason to try to have him marry their daughters. Not the most noble solution, but logic didn't care about feelings and neither did Kaiba.

While he wouldn't be looking for the most perfect possible partner because they would ultimately serve as a figurehead, not as actual romantic partner, he still had reasonable standards. He'd need someone who had some kind of public presence, they didn't have to be a household name or anything just well known enough to be recognized by bystanders. Male obviously because he wouldn't change his preferences for any reason. Didn't have to be a model, but at least be decently attractive. The trait he'd seek out the most was someone who was self-assured and proud, because the Kaiba name had no room for someone who was riddled with insecurity, or easily pressured.

Now that he was in his mid twenties he'd finally met CEO's close to his age range, but it was unlikely that any of them were also homosexual. And even if they were, Kaiba knew that they would never out themselves to the public in fear of scandal. Cowards.

In the end, he ended up looking to familiar faces from the past.

Von Schroeder wouldn't have been too bad of an option since they were close to the same age and both business men, but Kaiba hated both his attitude and the color pink. Not to mention the European had recently gotten married himself, so that option was out of the window.

Otogi, although attractive and confident, Kaiba always felt as if the other man came across as vain and knew that the dark haired man's pride rivaled his own, and even though he invented Dungeon Dice Monsters he was still not very popular in the gaming industry. That, and he was more than sure that Otogi was already in a long-standing relationship.

Yugi Mutou was tempting, as the number one duelist in the world he was very popular, and the last Kaiba had seen he had grown confident even without the Pharaoh, but he knew Yugi had no interest in men and was in a relationship with Mazaki. Whether or not they were married or dating he wasn't sure, he hadn't kept track of them.

That left one person.

He hadn't seen Katsuya Jonouchi since they graduated from high school seven years ago and he had no idea what he'd been up to besides still being the number three ranked duelist overall, and although he wasn't near as active as he used to be he was still a professional duelist. That fact warranted at least a quick google search.

He was the national champion of the United States, which was his current place of residence. More specifically, San Antonio Texas where he worked at Brooke Army Medical Center as a CRNA - Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. He had studied to become one at Dallas Nursing School. The career explained his relative absence from dueling.

What caught Kaiba's attention was one of the reasons Jonouchi was popular, especially among younger duelists; he was openly bisexual.

* * *

Sometimes Jonouchi wondered if all of the anesthesia exposure caused the drugs to become permanently infused with his bloodstream, because he was pretty sure he was hallucinating.

He had trudged his way out of the hospital as soon as his lunch hour came up, not caring if his scrubs and long sleeved cotton shirt were stained in blood, CSF and god knows what else. All he wanted was to go the nearby 7/11 and grab a coffee, a crappy but cheap greasy sandwich, and find some god-damn peace; when all of a sudden out of nowhere Seto Kaiba, his rival from high school, materialized out of nowhere and 'asked' him to join him to talk over lunch.

Although confused, he was too groggy from his long shift to protest or question the brunet right away, not to mention the prospect of free food after having not had breakfast was far too enticing.

"So..." Jonouchi started calmly, if a little awkwardly. "How are you, Kaiba?"

They were sitting in a way far back table of a some random steakhouse and barbecue style restaurant. Jonouchi noted that Kaiba didn't look much different from when they were in high school, besides now being slightly more filled out and having premature lines under his eyes undeniably from long work hours and stress, something the blond was all too familiar with now himself. To the CRNA's relief, Kaiba wasn't decked out in his usual ridiculous and over dramatic trench coat attire but instead a white collared button up shirt, and dark slacks with typical business type black loafers. His hair style had changed only slightly, being in the same basic shape but more trimmed.

"I'm doing well, Jonouchi." The CEO replied calmly, more professional than polite.

Jonouchi on the other hand must have looked quite a bit different to his rich counterpart - his hair style hadn't changed, but it was currently more messed up than usual because of how much he'd been running around the hospital that day. He'd grown slightly taller and was now close to Kaiba's height save for and inch or two, and retained a muscular physique, not that it was noticeable under his long sleeved white cotton shirt, and dark green scrubs.

"What's this about Kaiba? If you're having some kind of big tournament soon I can't go, the charge nurse is on maternity leave and I'm covering down for her for the next three months." Although truthfully he would still love to go to one; he hadn't gone to a very large tournament since the Grand Prix, so far he'd stuck to state and regional tournaments, and a few title challenges here and there.

"There's no tournament." Kaiba explained, drinking water as they waited for their food to come. Luckily Kaiba could speak English just as well as he could, which wasn't very surprising in hindsight but a relief nonetheless, although he held an obvious Japanese accent, similar to how Jonouchi held an American accent when speaking Japanese. "This is about personal matters."

Jonouchi cracked a brow up "I haven't seen you in like seven years dude, you couldn't have at least called or texted me or something, before taking a long flight all the way to the states."

"I prefer face-to-face interaction."

"So you came all to way to Texas?" The blonde couldn't help but roll his eyes "Rich people..."

"I've heard one of the reasons you're popular is because younger duelists look up to you." That one came out of nowhere, Kaiba's intentions remained unclear.

"Well… I'm not number one in duel monsters, but I'm still the United States champion."

"And you're LGBT."

"...So what? What do you care?" Jonouchi continued giving Kaiba a blank stare. This guy comes out of nowhere and all of sudden he wants to discuss something personal, like they hadn't been rivals in high school. They had a grudging respect for each other at best.

Kaiba's face remained unchanged as he said "I am as well." Jonouchi will admit he probably looked confounded as the waiter finally brought them their food.

"So… You like to go out to the club with heels?" Jonouchi joked, he supposed he shouldn't be joking about something like that, but the absurd mental imagine forced the question, and he'd been in Texas for so long he'd just adapted to insensitivity.

"I'm homosexual, Jonouchi." Kaiba explained as he nonchalantly started on his food, which was simply just a grilled chicken breast and a side of salad "Not a secret, but a little known fact."

"Okay…?" Okay, Jonouchi will admit that was surprising, mostly because he'd always just kind of assumed that Kaiba was an asexual sea sponge. Still, why was Kaiba discussing sexuality with him? It was inappropriate considering that, again, they hadn't seen or spoken to each other in years. "What does that have to do with me? Cut to the chase man." This wasn't going to be some kind of love confession was it? While he had found Kaiba handsome in high school, he barely liked him as a person, let alone saw him a potential love interest.

His hunger overpowered his curiosity and he tuned Kaiba out a little bit as he tore into his food - brisket slices with fries and a hot roll. He didn't really listen to Kaiba's justification for bringing up such a personal topic until-

"-I need to get married, and you're the most logical option." The brunet explained as if it were something as simple and trivial as needing someone to duel with to pass the time during a long wait.

Jonouchi choked on and nearly spit out the roll he just chomped into.

The billionaire had the decency to allow him to recover before continuing "I'm sure you're wondering how I came to the conclusion that you-"

"You're joking right?" The blonde duelist cut him off, "Is this some kind of joke? Are you filming this for a YouTube prank video or something? For the love of god, you can't be serious."

"I am very serious, Jonouchi. My peers in the business world are constantly trying to get me to marry their daughters, and my turning them down is ruining my professional relationships. If I'm married, they have no reason to get offended if I refuse." He justified.

Jonouchi almost felt insulted "You want me to marry you for business? That doesn't make you any better than those other businessmen."

"Wrong, I'm not offering up my brother like some kind of cheap whore like they are with their daughters."

"Kaiba! I know you have the social skills of a head of cabbage, but don't you see why I have a problem with this? I don't even  _like_ you."

"You don't have to, you just have to be my legal husband."

Jonouchi facepalmed at the nonchalance of the Blue Eyes White Dragon master at such a serious topic "Gay marriage isn't even legal in Japan!"

"Not a large scale, no. But they've recently started issuing a few same-sex marriage licenses. A 'generous donation' to Domino City public fund should convince them to issue one to me." Seto Kaiba continued to  _rationalize_ his insane plan, and Jonouchi stared bug-eyed at him for a long time before staring down to his now empty plate. Time to leave was now.

"Yeahhhh, well um, thanks for lunch and all Kaiba. I'm gonna go head back to work now before my LVN left in charge freaks out." He slowly got up and walked away.

"It's to my understanding you're under thousands of dollars of student loan debt." The CEO stated with a slightly raised voice, making Jonouchi freeze in his tracks "The terms of your scholarship was that it was full ride as long as you retained a minimum of a C average of all of your classes, but failed and had to re-take your last semester of Microbiology, violating the terms of your scholarship. Now you have to pay back the full-ride cost with interest." He explained calmly, but Jonouchi could detect a slight smug tone.

His face paled a bit - it was true, already working full time as a RN when he was finishing his last year of courses to become a CRNA, along with some other distractions, his grades fell from a B average to a C average, and he'd failed his last semester of Microbiology. Already too far into the career course plan to drop it, and too close to becoming a CRNA, he ultimately decided to re-take it to finish. Now he was tens of thousands of dollars into student loan debt.

"Sit back down." Kaiba 'asked' politely, and Jonouchi complied.

In a harsh whisper, with a glare Jonouchi demanded answers "How the hell do you know that?"

"I do my homework, unlike you." Okay, ouch.

"Fuck you I did my-"

"Keep your voice down and don't swear, we're in public. I'm not asking that you become a sex slave; all I ask for is that you assist me, and I assist you in return. You know I'm capable of making that student loan debt disappear instantly when it would take you decades. All you have to do is sign a paper, wear a gold band for show." Kaiba insisted - and Jonouchi nervously clicked his pen from his pocket. The brunet had him there, the debt would take decades to pay back even working full time, and big cash prizes just didn't occur with duel monsters tournaments anymore.

He didn't like Kaiba, in fact he used to despise him in the past because of his own juvenile pride and abrasiveness. He especially hated now the fact that the CEO would corner him like this out of nowhere, but even with such a good job, he was still struggling. His credit score was already bad just from that debt, and it seemed like even if he paid off most of his paycheck, the interest caused whatever contribution he made to the giant fat leech of student loan debt not matter in the slightest.

"...How long."

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: And so it continues, this is how Kaiba convinces Jonouchi to become his spouse. Nothing should go wrong, right? All smooth sailing from here, right?


	3. Fallacies

**Chapter 2: Fallacies**

Living in the Kaiba mansion wasn't that bad all things considered, although he still missed his old apartment in San Antonio. The size of the mansion was just as much of a curse as it was a blessing. It was nice to have all the space, because this allowed him to have a completely different living space from his… spouse. Especially since it was just him, Kaiba, the small live-in staff and technically Mokuba, who was studying abroad, and still had a room set up. However, all the unnecessary space made the mansion seem so empty… not like a home at all.

When Kaiba had first made his 'proposal', he'd assured it would only last about three years, five years at most. Mostly just to get the CEO's peers to clearly see that he had no interest in women. Although it seemed like a long time, it was still only a fraction of the time it would take to pay back his student loan debt. As much as he didn't like Kaiba, at least the guy kept his promises and paid it all off as soon as they both signed the marriage certificate. Jonouchi could have divorced him on the spot, but if Kaiba could uphold his promise, he would as well.

The brunet allowed him to finish covering down for his head nurse as he got his affairs in America in order. He was quite sad to leave America where he'd made several new friends that now he'd probably never see again. Plenty of military personnel in fact since Joint Base San Antonio was the military medical training hub for Soldiers, Airmen and Sailors, a lot of them had a second job at the hospital or worked there as ordered by the military for some reason or another, and they'd introduced him to military culture.

Once he had all of stuff packed, and all his affairs in order to move back to Domino City, Kaiba first had them sign an American marriage license to make the marriage seem more credible given Jonouchi's dual-citizen status, and a long-distance relationship would explain why they've never been seen in public together.

Once back in Domino City, they weren't legally married under Japanese law where same-sex marriage wasn't recognized yet except for a few cases. Kaiba had, however, been right when he said that a big enough donation would make the city look the other way. It made Domino City all too happy to legally recognize their marriage license and issue them a Japanese one as well.

It made Jonouchi feel bad though, to think about the legitimate and loving same-sex couples across Japan who couldn't be married under Japanese law, yet Kaiba could get married to another man for business purposes just because he was obscenely wealthy. If that wasn't special treatment, he didn't know what was.

The two duelists had made a promise that they wouldn't tell anyone, even their friends and loved ones, the true reason for their marriage as not to either humiliate in Jonouchi's case, or demonize in Kaiba's case. Well, Jonouchi's friends and loved ones at least; for Kaiba it was loved  _one_ , peers, and the public opinion.

Speaking of their friends and loved ones, their marriage had no doubt caused quite the shock, Jonouchi ended up lying to his friends and family that he'd been keeping the 'relationship' secret for three years because he didn't want to cause any drama if it didn't work out and, and that Kaiba needed time to publicly come out of the closet. His sister was hurt that he'd keep something like this from her, and was still giving him the silent treatment about it.

Mokuba was the opposite to Jonouchi's sibling, he was ecstatic over his brother getting married to someone who was both a familiar face and 'wasn't a gold-digging hoebag' in his own words - the guy had a colorful vocabulary. However, Kaiba admitted to him soon after their private wedding that Mokuba knew him so well that he probably knew it was all a façade, and went with it because he was just glad his big brother wasn't totally alone now.

Now, there was no way in Dante's Inferno that Jonouchi would resign to become a housewife, he cringed at the very thought, after he'd spent so much time and stress to become a CRNA; after some heavy persuasion, which was all but carefully worded blackmail, Kaiba agreed to let his new spouse work under the condition that he would work at a private hospital owned by Kaiba Corp.

While he hated that he had to technically work for the guy he had grown to despise more and more each passing day when he already had to bear with being married to him; the facility was a doctor's office and acute care clinic that catered specifically to orphan or underprivileged pediatric patients, which Jonouchi couldn't bring himself to disapprove of no matter who owned and funded it. It was almost sweet how the CEO in all his influence, wealth and power, couldn't let go of his roots.

Not that he empathized with the man.

Being new, he was just a regular CRNA with RN duties since anesthesia was rarely administered with pediatric patients compared to adults. He wasn't in as high as a position as he used to be at the hospital he used to work at, to his chagrin he'd have to work his way up all over again. And it wasn't easy because being married to the owner of the facility meant that automatically one half of the staff hated him and swore up and down he got special treatment, while the other half consistently tried to kiss his ass.

Home life was dull, Kaiba was usually at work, and even when he wasn't they lived in different wings of the mansion and so far, have had very little interaction since getting married. A small comfort, in the beginning of this convoluted 'plan' the red eyes black dragon master was afraid that his… spouse, would require them sharing a bedroom and bed; or worse, sex. He'd seriously prefer sticking his dick in an ant hill over having sex with Kaiba, his animosity towards the CEO was just that strong.

They'd been married, and he'd been back in Domino City, for six months so far. They still didn't even really like each other at all, and hadn't so much as kissed for obvious reasons.

Currently Jonouchi was in one of lounge rooms, which each floor had, but he was in the first floor one; he'd just gotten back from the gym after work, and didn't feel like going up the stairs. He was lying on the couch in just his scrub pants and white cotton shirt, watching TV, and munching on a bowl of seedless grapes.

All of a sudden, his 'knight in shining armor' showed up, and Jonouchi just tries his best to ignore him, but he stood there quietly staring at him from the doorway as if expecting acknowledgment, which he most likely was, but Jonouchi didn't give two halves of a fuck.

Eventually he relented "Can I help you, Kaiba?" He asked as calmly and politely as possible, but of course he sounded irritated.

"We're going to a social event tonight." The brunette informed him without a hint of bargaining.

But Jonouchi was a haggler nonetheless, and he groaned "Can't you tell them I'm at work?"

"It's an acute care clinic, not a full hospital, day shift ends at five o'clock. The event starts at nine."

"Can't you tell them I'm sick?"

"Katsuya it's been six months, and I've used that excuse eight times already."

"Can't you tell them I died?" Okay that one was obviously a joke, but he was still irritated and didn't want to go to some business event designed for extremely rich people to show off projects, and hypothetically show everyone just how big their dick really was.

Kaiba sighed and walked over, resting a hand onto the couch to lean on it slightly. Oh great, now he was going to use one of those bullshit first-semester-of-community-college-psych techniques on him. Oh, joy how he really looked forward to being guilted by a guy he despised but was unfortunately hitched to. "Look, if this arrangement is going to work we have to at least occasionally be seen in public together as a couple, we don't want this to look like a sham."

"This is a sham, dumbass." He popped another grape into his mouth and chewed with his mouth open just to spite the blue-eyed duelist, and to highlight the fact that he still didn't give two halves of a fuck.

"Regardless, Katsuya, you should at least put  _some_ effort into this marriage, I can't be the one pulling all of the weight." Kaiba stated sternly, and his statement almost made Jonouchi throw the whole ceramic bowl of grapes at him.

Angrily the blonde retorted "Oh hell no are you going to accuse me of not pulling my weight! I gave up my  _life_ for this 'arrangement'!" His appeal to emotion fallacy fell to ears that belonged to an emotionless brain.

"Get upstairs, clean up and put on something decent. This isn't an option, you're going to go. It isn't a very formal even so I'd  _suggest_  business casual." And with that, Kaiba left the living room, to get ready for the event as well. He put emphasis on the word suggest because Jonouchi had no choice.

* * *

"If you like me Kaiba just say so." Jonouchi whispered, harshly but in a joking manner as his… spouse, practically dragged him out of the limo, insisting on their arms being linked together so they wouldn't give away the fact that they hated physical contact of any kind with each other.

"Just stay quiet." Kaiba instructed in a mumble, walking them both to the Centre where the event was being held – some old billionaire unveiling his next product to make even more money, seeking out fellow business tycoons to invest in it.

"Whatever." The brunet continued to walk him in, and Jonouchi was relieved to see that it wasn't a formal white-collar event, and the other people attending were in business casual as well, but all of them, minus the presumably single ones, had brought their spouses. Okay so maybe Kaiba had good reason to drag him with him, not that he'd give him credit or anything.

Once they were both seat at some random table, the CEO started giving him a 'pep talk'. "Don't you dare talk to anyone. If you do, keep it limited to pleasantries only. I don't need you saying anything unintelligent to my peers."

"Yes 'dear', of course." Jonouchi sarcastically replied, but nodded as well. He didn't want to talk to some random rich people he didn't know anyways. He didn't even like talking to Kaiba, and he knew him.

"I'll go grab us a drink, you wait here." Kaiba said, then paused "Not because I care but, you know, have to keep the image of a marriage up."

Jonouchi rolled his eyes, crossed his arms and not caring how unprofessional it looked "Whatever, Kaiba, just, no alcohol okay." The blonde duelist didn't drink. The blue-eyed man simply nodded and walked away, giving his 'partner' a moment of peace.

Jonouchi heavily sighed. He really should have paid closer attention in class during Microbiology.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: I don't have a name for the clinic that Jonouchi currently works at but it's a children's acute care clinic owned by the Kaiba Corporation. And when Jonouchi said he'd rather stick his dick in an ant hill than have sex with Kaiba, it's a reference to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vXNTCpM6rE
> 
> Please leave a review.


	4. Foreward

**Chapter 3: Forward**

"Kaiba-sama, a man and his son and here to see you." Jonouchi inwardly flinched when one of the LVN's referred to him by his married name; something he'd probably never get used to. He kept his disgust to himself as he turned to face the young nurse.

"Understood, thank you; but why isn't the doctor seeing him?"

"The doctor has seen them, but she wants you to coax the boy into taking his medicine. You know children don't respond to her like they do to you." Jonouchi couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"Alright. Which room are they in?"

"Fifty."

As Jonouchi walked to the room he could swear he could hear the other nurse giggle; which made him suspicious as first but he ended up just shrugging it off. Females, as much as he loved them, were strange creatures.

He walked into the room, and was taken aback. "Jonouchi!" The man, father of the boy he was supposed to be attending to, was grinning as he walked over. An all-too-familiar man.

"O-Otagi?" Jonouchi stammered slightly before breaking into his own grin over seeing a friendly familiar face in the dice master. Ryuji Otogi looked very similar to how he had as a teen, but was dressed casually, and more conservatively. His dark hair was trimmed at the bangs, and kept in a neater style, but still pulled into a ponytail in the back. The rims of his eyes were clear from lack of eyeliner, and his dice earrings were now just gold hoops, which Jonouchi supposed were supposed to match the golden band around his finger. Against his shoulder he held a small toddler-aged boy.

"I heard you were working here, and almost couldn't believe it," the dark haired man told his old friend with a small smile "but once I saw your name on the employee roster in the hallway, I had to request you."

"Really? Wow. I haven't been able to meet up with anyone yet." Truthfully he knew that his friends knew him well enough to see his frustration over his marriage with Kaiba as soon as the subject would be brought up. Luckily, Otogi just couldn't see right through him like Yugi, Anzu, and Honda could.

"Is it true though… Did you really tie the knot with Kaiba?" Well son of a bitch, that topic came up quickly. Jonouchi managed to keep a straight face as he pointed to his name tab which clearly read 'Kaiba Katsuya', a name the blond had no attachment to. "Wow, I guess I should start calling you Kaiba then, huh?"

"Please don't." Jonouchi told him, trying not to sound as exasperated as he really was "Can you introduce me to your son?" That should get Otogi off the topic, parents loved gushing about their kids. He was relieved when he was proven to be right as the dark haired man turned his baby boy to face Jonouchi.

The boy had very dark brown hair that shot up in random spikes, and green eyes just like his father, but his skin was tan compared to Otogi's pale. He was oddly familiar, but then again all babies looked the same in the CRNA's opinion. "What's the boys name?"

"Chokichi." Otogi told him as he lightly bounced the small toddler, who only continued to absentmindedly suck on his thumb. That made Jonouchi quirk a brow at the similarity the baby shared with another one.

"That's ironic, Honda's son has the same name-" Before the blonde could properly finish his sentence, the other man started to chuckle, making him pause "Hey what's so funny, guy?"

"Didn't Honda ever tell you?" Otogi continued to chuckle, then cleared his throat "Chokichi is mine and Honda's son, we had him together."

"..." Jonouchi fell silent. Honda and Otogi? His former classmate had a ring on, did that mean he was married to Honda? And they somehow had a kid together? "What?" Honda had sent him a ton of pictures of the baby the minute the kid had been born, but he always dodged the question on who the 'mother' was, which at the time had Jonouchi come to the conclusion that some girl he'd slept with just ditched the baby on him. Turned out there was no mother. "...How?"

"That's a story for another time." Otogi's eyes held a glint "Me and Honda aren't married since it isn't legal yet, but we do have a domestic partnership. We attended the same university and fell in love there." Although Jonouchi supposed he should have felt happy for his friends, it still felt like a stab to just now hear about all of that. Honda had been his friend since middle school, and yeah neither of them were the best when it came to calling, but he couldn't have at least mentioned once he was involved with Otogi, and had even started a family together?

"Interesting..." He muttered in an almost Kaiba-esque way, which he caught right away. Gross, the bastard was starting to rub off on him. "Well, can you tell me what's wrong with the little guy?"

"He's had a fever for the past few days and he can't shake it off..." Otogi explained as he gently stroked the baby's head.

"Hm. Simple thing man, doesn't sweat. This is probably just a bacterial infection - kids put everything into their mouths you know. We'll give him some fluid and electrolytes and probably some broad-spectrum antibiotics. Let me ask a few questions first; what kind of symptoms has he shown?"

"Fever, crying to the point of screaming… isn't eating and can't sleep well." Jot.

"Does he have any allergies?"

"Bee stings." Jot.

"Does he take any medications currently?"

"Just some baby cough medicine." Jot.

"Has this happened before?"

"No, he hasn't run a fever like this before." Jot.

"What was the last thing he ate or drank?"

"Cold formula milk, and a little bit of applesauce." Jot.

"What was going on before he came down with the fever?"

"Just… normal stuff. We took him out for a walk out at the little kids park." Jot. Just as he took the last note the baby started to loudly cry, his flushed face growing to the likeness of an angry tomato. "No, baby shh, it's okay..." Otogi told the baby softly and rocked him, rubbing his back and trying to calm him down in all of the usual ways.

Still a little alien seeing Otogi so gentle.

"Alright you wait here, I'll go consult his pediatrician." From the cupboard he quickly produced a pedialyte bottle, a special type of juice for babies with plenty of electrolytes, very important for fevers. "Give him this, the fevers probably dehydrating him." The dark haired man nodded and took the bottle, coaxing the small boy into drinking from it.

* * *

"What's wrong with you today?" Kaiba asked, more out of curiosity than actual concern. Jonouchi had come into his office after work as he sometimes did, which the brunet requested as to keep up appearances.

Jonouchi's teeth ungritted just enough to ask "Did you know that Otogi and Honda were partners?" His… spouse, didn't bother to so much as look up from his computer screen. "Well… Did you?" Jonouchi had just gotten off of work and changed before heading over, he tried texting and calling Honda but had gotten no response, and he'd grown so frustrated in silence that now he had to take it out on someone, even if it had to be the guy he hated for holding him as a basically a hostage-bride.

"I might have heard at some point in time from my brother that Otogi was in some kind of relationship, but I don't go out of my way to keep track of the cheerleader squad. So, I'm gonna have to say no." The CEO cooly replied, typing away.

"I can't believe that he wouldn't tell me. I've known that asshole since we were trouble-making shits of kids- Kaiba, would you at least pretend you see me as a regular person as  _look_  at me while I talk to you?" Just to prove his point and frustration he gripped the couch, and shoved it over onto it's back.

Kaiba at least acknowledged him by looking up and stopping his excessive typing.

"I mean, I'm not expecting the guy to tell me each and every one of his most intimate secrets, but that's a big part of his life and he never bothered to tell me."

The blue-eyed man crossed his arms with a disapproving hum "What do you expect? Did you think that you and your clique would remain friends forever once high school ended? Wake up, friendship doesn't last forever no matter how much you preach, they moved on. And so should you." Honestly, Kaiba had almost forgot just how emotional the other duelist could be.

"This is coming from the guy who spent millions of dollars taking control of a city for a duel monsters tournament because you couldn't accept defeat." Jonouchi retorted. Kaiba's hand tightened around his own forearm. He'd been a little hot-blooded back then, but his loss to Yugi all those years ago never felt right… perhaps because the boy who beat him wasn't Yugi at all, but the spirit of the puzzle.

Even in the Grand Prix, losing to Yugi didn't feel right. Why? Because even if he was dueling the spirit of the puzzle, the spirit was in the end just a spirit… He wasn't his true self, he wasn't at his full strength with his own memories or ambitions, he was in the end just a powerful extension of Yugi. That was why he had gone so far as to see the Pharaoh in the afterlife, because his old rival owed him a  _real_ duel. Even if he hadn't won, he still had the closure he needed to move on with his life.

"Stop looking back Katsuya, you're not supposed to be going that way." Kaiba answered cryptically as he resumed his work. Jonouchi glared coldly at him.

"Everyone has a past Kaiba, even you. You think I don't know that you named that hospital after the Orphanage you came from?" The brunet paused again "Whatever, you're no help. I'm going back to the mansion, and I'm not fixing the damn couch. " With that the blond turned away and left, ultimately venting didn't help. And he felt no closer to his… spouse.

Oh well, yet another night of dry sobbing into his pillow and jacking it.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: So the clinic is named after the orphanage that the Kaiba brothers came from, that's what I've decided. And yes, there you go, Otogi and Honda are a couple with an adorable little shit of their own. As stated before, this fanfiction takes place years after the Dark Side of Dimensions, where Kaiba somehow comes back from the afterlife after his duel with Atem. He didn't win, but after having finally gotten a fair duel with no one else but him and and the Pharaoh, he found closure and could finally move on.
> 
> Please leave a review.


	5. Blind Date

**Chapter 4: Blind Date**

Wednesday was Jonouchi's chosen day off - he worked weekends overtime for the compounded extra pay, since he kept a separate bank account from Kaiba still. He was keeping to himself in the lounge room on his floor of the mansion. His angry texts to Honda had not yet received a response, so he was sulking over it. He'd already gone to the gym that morning and still his frustration hadn't been worked off, so he was drowning his sorrow into a bowl of prawn chips, something he'd often indulged in as a teen but didn't so much anymore due to his steadily slowing metabolism.

He was so  _alone._ His sister Shizuka was still giving him the silent treatment over his 'secret two-year-long relationship' with Kaiba, Honda wouldn't respond to his angry text messages - although starting them off with "You asshole" probably wasn't the best conversation starter choice - Yugi and Anzu were currently in NYC for a Broadway show she was dancing in, Bakura was in Kyoto, and Otogi was too busy parenting to hang out with him, which Jonouchi knew because unlike his partner the dark-haired man was actually willing to respond to his texts.

Kaiba was most likely at work, as far as Jonouchi knew. He didn't interact with his… spouse, very much. He hadn't bumped into him in the mansion in three solid days so far. Usually he kept himself entertained with either electronics, or talking to the mansion servants. The main cook was pretty hot so he talked to her often. She had a penchant for short skirts too, which made Jonouchi really, really glad that Kaiba never put forth a dress code for his hired help.

Not that he'd do anything with her, for one he would always respect the sanctity of marriage even if he hated who he was married to, and he also knew it would severely displease Kaiba, not because the brunet respected the sanctity of marriage, but because he didn't want a scandal to make him look bad. For now he was content with looking but not touching.

"You look ridiculous." He heard all of a sudden - his head snapped to the entrance to the lounge room, where Kaiba stood with his arms crossed. He hadn't noticed the CEO enter, although it was hard to ever sense the guy coming because he had the lightest steps known to man. Jonouchi scowled - his attire consisted of a green plaid t-shirt, which were tucked into blue jeans held up by a brown belt with a big metal buckle, and brown cowboy ankle length cowboy boots under the jeans.

"Have you ever looked at yourself?" Jonouchi scoffed in return, referring to Kaiba's over dramatic trench coat and BEWD worship dressing taste . He'd spent so long in Texas he'd adapted to the modern southern style, at least he didn't do the ten gallon cowboy hat and shiny tassels that some of the older southern men still did. He loved his Red Eyes Black Dragon, sure, it was still his trademark card, but not enough to worship it, and dress in tribute to it like a patron god. "What do you want, Kaiba?" He asked between munches of prawn chips.

"Tonight at six, we're going to Kozue." Kaiba announced, because anytime he told the blond something it was because they were going to do it, no if ands or buts about it.

"Kozue?" Jonouchi echoed, his brain scrambled for a second trying to remember the place he was talking about "...That famous restaurant in Tokyo?"

"Indeed." The tall brunet clarified, Jonouchi gave him a long stare before speaking.

"...Dude, we're two hundred mi- I mean, over three-hundred kilometers from Tokyo. It'll take a whole day to get there." Jonouchi quickly converted from the imperial system of measurement to metric. He almost forgot that Kaiba most likely either didn't know miles, or was at most rusty with that system.

"I'll take us in my private jet." Kaiba reassured in his ever present monotone. The blonde nurse groaned loudly at the thought of that embarrassing dragon themed jet that he remembered Kaiba having when they were younger. It seemed kind of cool when they were teens, but now that they were mature adults he really realized how childish it was. And people called him immature.

"Oh come on, Kaiba. Not after that business banquet we had to go to; I'd serious prefer camping out in duelist kingdom over the torture of another lame product related speech." Jonouchi grumbled, but as usual his former rival wasn't the type to negotiate.

"Be ready by five thirty." Kaiba commanded "Put something  _presentable_ on." His eyes narrowed a bit more at the blonde. It was no secret that Kaiba did not approved of the westernized style that he'd picked up. Jonouchi absent-mindedly nodded but said nothing, although he did make his eye-roll as visible and obvious as possible, as the CEO finally left him alone.

Jonouchi looked at the clock - it was only eleven in the afternoon; well shit he still had a lot of time to kill. He looked to his half-empty bowl of prawn chips; that talk with Kaiba really ruined his stress-eating appetite.

* * *

People of Domino, unlike his… spouse, didn't really care about the way he was dressed, mostly because they were used to seeing American tourists and probably assumed he was one, and they actually minded their own damn business. It was a relief to not be talked down to as he walked the streets of Domino, many of those streets familiar from his late childhood and his teenage years. He paused when he saw the all-too-familiar Kame Game Shop, one of the most common stops from his past.

Yugi definitely wasn't there, but his grandfather most likely was, as indicated by the sign on the door which was flipped to the 'open' side. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Jonouchi walked over and stepped into the shop, lo behold the old man indeed was standing behind the counter, talking to one of his customers.

"Gramps?" Jonouchi addressed, it seemed to gain both Sugoroku and the customers attention. The old man lit up at the sight of his grandsons best friend.

"Jonouchi my boy." Grandpa Motou said with a gruff chuckle as he walked slowly over from behind the counter. He didn't look too different from how he had eight years earlier, besides his gait and slightly cloudy eyes indicating the fragility of old age. "I wasn't expecting the visit."

"Yeah, I've been a bit… Busy." Jonouchi said with a weak grin as he rubbed the back of his own head sheepishly. "I was walking and saw the shop and thought it was finally time to pay another visit." Oh he had indeed visited before, Sugoroku lived in the Game Shop alone now, Yugi had moved out and his mother now lived in the countryside with her husband who had finally retired. They wanted to take the old man to live with them as was customary, but he refused, he wanted to continue to run his game shop.

"Jonouchi?" The customer inquired, the blonde nurse finally took notice of the man; he had short dark brown hair that was spiked at the edges and had a splash of violet at the middle of his hairline. He had sharp brown eyes with narrow pupils, slightly tanned skin, and stood a few inches under Jonouchi's height, at maybe 5'8. He was wearing an untucked cream dress shirt with a dark green tie, and black slacks.

"...Ryuzaki?" He came to the conclusion slowly, and the other man slowly shook his head. It was surprising really, the brunet seemed to have grown out of his awkward phase and wasn't cringy to look at anymore.

"Ah yes, he's a frequent customer these days." Sugoroku told the blond with a gentle smile still intact.

"You... Still duel?" Jonouchi awkwardly asked his old enemy; Ryuzaki used to be highly ranked in the region, up until Yugi and the gang entered the scene with their absurdly skilled foes, and his popularity dwindled from there along with his running mate Haga.

Ryuzaki looked to the newly acquired card in his hands "Sort of, well, mostly to amuse my kids."

"YOU have kids?" Okay, that was shocking too.

"Well yeah - no! No, not my own." Ryuzaki quickly and embarrassingly shook his head "My kids as in - I'm a primary school teacher. My students is what I mean."

Jonouchi nodded at the explanation, this made slightly more sense; although it was still unexpected. "Ahhh I see. You and Haga still... friends?" Were they friends or were they rivals? It was hard to tell with those two with their constant arguing.

"We're more than friends Jonouchi... couldn't you tell? We've been dating since Battle City..." Ryuzaki told him, straightening up his tie. Although the blond did not reply out loud, he couldn't help but think of something he dare not say aloud, especially in the presence of Yugi's sweet if old fashioned and very modest grandfather.

_'Am I the only guy around here who likes pussy?'_

* * *

Catching up with Ryuzaki by chatting over a quick half-hearted table duel proved to somehow lift Jonouchi's spirit from the proverbial dumps they had been in earlier. The runt had indeed grown mature in more than looks. He worked at the local primary school for students in Grade Three, and many of the ankle-biters loved duel monsters just as they generation of kids before them had. Although the violet-fringed man did not competitively duel anymore, he still taught and played the game during breaks with his students.

Jonouchi spoke about the antics of his coworkers and patients, and things that had happened while he had been schooling, and likewise Ryuzaki did the same but with students rather than patients; they found both groups to be trying at times. They also lamented the struggles of being male in female-dominated occupations, an issue they had a hard time discussing with their male friends, or even female friends if they were in similar situations, as it was quite the... different, experience.

It was refreshing to make a friend again, even if in the form of a former enemy. Speaking of which, Ryuzaki explained that Haga was working as a Entomologist for the local university; and was actually currently lecturing for a semester at Universiti Putra Malaysia, a research university in Seri Kembangan, Malaysia. He'd gotten far in life, that lanky nerd did.

According to Ryuzaki, while they did live together they had no children, and did not plan for any, while Ryuzaki loved children, his partner had very little patience and absolutely no desire for one, and he respected that.

Jonouchi surprised himself when he found himself to be disappointed when Ryuzaki left, mostly because he had seen so little of his friends and family, and didn't exactly have the most engaging relationship with Kaiba. He was just so... so freaking lonely. The silver lining was that they exchanged numbers and agreed to hang out another time.

"Say, Jonouchi, what brings you to this part of town?" Grandpa Motou asked as he brought his surrogate grandchild a cup of green tea, which the blond thanked him for as he sipped it.

"I just wanted to kill some time before me and Kaiba are going to a restaurant in a bit." Jonouchi practically muttered, drinking half of the cup in only a few sips..

"A date?" The old man inquired.

"...You can say that, I mean, usually it's business gatherings. I don't really make a point to ask Kaiba anymore because either way it's lame and I don't get a choice." The blond complained.

Sugoroku stared at him for a hard minute, which made the nurse feel awkward because he knew that look too well, it was look he'd gotten so many times when he'd asked the old man to teach him how to play duel monsters, and subsequently trained him. "Why do you call him Kaiba?"

"-..." Jonouchi froze, no one ever questioned him calling his... spouse, Kaiba. It was just so natural of him, but he realized how strange it was to call your own significant other by their family name and never their first name, especially after supposedly dating for over two years and getting married.

While he could lie about the whole facade no problem, he still had trouble making things up for small details like that. "W-Well uh, you know… it's just, isn't very respectful to call him by his first name with people who aren't on a first-name basis with him too-"

"Are you lying my boy?"

"..." A hand fell on the blond's shoulder, squeezing it softly but firmly.

"Are there… underlying circumstances to you marrying Kaiba?"

"Gramps..."

"You don't have to tell me… but, if you're unhappy, don't be afraid to admit it. To me, or him. Or yourself."

* * *

"I can't believe you kept those ridiculous westernized clothes on." Kaiba told him sharply, not bothering to look back from the steering mechanism of the jet as he scolded him. Honey brown eyes rolled in response, indeed Jonouchi had not bothered to change from what he was wearing earlier, mostly out of spite but partially because he just didn't feel like changing. "Why are you insisting on trying to embarrass me?"

"...Dude you know I don't like you, right?" Jonouchi muttered; it wasn't entirely true, he didn't _hate_ Kaiba or anything, he just didn't like being bossed around by someone. "And besides, you're one to talk; you're embarrassing both of us with this ridiculous dragon plane."

"Well you could have pretended to like me long enough for this dinner." The blue eyed man sharply retorted, still steering his ridiculous jet that Jonouchi had the displeasure of boarding, and soon enough the displeasure of being seen coming out of it.

"Whatever, what kind of business dinner is this anyways? You trying to buy someone out or something?" Jonouchi only really had a vague idea of how business worked, mostly he knew about healthcare management when it came to the subject of business. Big-wig multi-billion dollar gaming companies were a whole other topic.

"This isn't business related, Katsuya." Kaiba stated, irritated as if he'd just said the most obvious thing to the biggest idiot ever, which was probably how the brunet saw it.

Jonouchi exasperatingly placed his hands into his lap "Then why the hell are we going to some fancy restaurant in Tokyo?" Not that he minded dining on some of the fanciest food in Japan, but being demanded to do anything left a sour taste in his mouth nonetheless, and anytime Kaiba invited him for a meal, something terrible happened. Okay, so it only happened once, but that one terrible thing of ending up married to Kaiba was bad enough for him to always be on edge about it.

"Because we're a married couple, you do realize we have obligations other than business and living arrangements right? Does your undersized brain understand how this process works, or has the exposure to the anesthesia caused it to shrink even further?" Well there's the jerk-Kaiba that Jonouchi knew all too well, but the statement did make the gears in his head slowly turn.

"We're… going on a date?" He had difficulty even suggesting such a thing, oh god he was pretty sure the word 'date' made him throw up a little in his mouth.

"That is something that married couples do, Katsuya." Kaiba stated bluntly, not realizing the effect it had on the other man.

A date? A date with Kaiba of all people? Somehow that was worse than just being married to him, because being his hostage bride so far only required that he live with him and give up his original family name, not actually have to spend time with him for anymore than a few hours a week.

Tonight's sobbing into his pillow wasn't going to be dry.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: I imagine that since Domino city has docks, it'd be a coastline city, so I'd say close to the Japanese city of Tsu, which is roughly 198 miles from Tokyo, roughly about 321 kilometers.
> 
> I don't know how fast the blue eyes white dragon jet it, but for the hell of it let's say it's mach one speed, which travels about 750 miles / 1207 kilometers an hour, they could very well get to Tokyo before six.
> 
> Yugi's mother, although never seen in the 4kids dub, lives with Yugi and his grandpa in the game shop. Her husband, Sugoroku's son, is supposedly always away on business.
> 
> Jonouchi's negative feelings towards Kaiba are for the most exaggerated for comical purposes, he does in fact not hate Kaaba, but he doesn't really like him that much either. This discontent could be seen as both of their fault, as Kaiba is work-oriented and Jonouchi won't even try to get close to him. So Ryuzaki/Rex Raptor makes an appearance, unexpected I know. And apparently him and Haga have been dating this whole time.
> 
> Will he show up again, and what was the significance of him showing up again? Will anyone else show up or make unexpected appearance? Will Jonouchi ever stop dramatically sobbing into his pillow? Will he and Kaiba ever get along? Is Jonouchi really the only guy in this story who likes vagina?


	6. The Devil Came Down to Kozue

**Chapter 5: The Devil Came Down to Kozue**

Jonouchi sat across from Kaiba at the table trying to not make his actual discomfort around the CEO any more blatantly obvious. It wasn't enough he had to be seen exiting that ridiculous looking dragon themed jet, but to also be seen in public with Kaiba under the guise of matrimonial affection when there was absolutely none in reality.

"Would you at least  _attempt_ to look like there isn't a cactus up your orifice?" Kaiba scolded him quietly; earning a huff from the blond, although he was admittedly amused at the attempt at a joke.

"The human body has several external orifices Kaiba, if you're referring to the anus you'll have to be a bit more specific." Jonouchi cracked back; while Kaiba most likely had some rudimentary medical knowledge, there was no way it was as extensive as his own. That was one advantage the CRNA had over his… spouse.

The CEO rolled his eyes "My statement still stands; I'm one of the most apathetic people I know, and even I can see you're uncomfortable." So maybe Jonouchi wasn't the best at hiding his emotions.

"I can't help it you know, it's not like I expected a date." Jonouchi said as he sipped his water - Kaiba was drinking sake, some fancy brand that the restaurant served. America didn't offer much real sake and instead had a preference for wine and beers when it came to non-liquor alcohol at least, an observation Jonouchi made despite his abhorrence to drinking based solely on his interactions with his friends in the states.

At least it wasn't absinthe.

The brunet rose an eyebrow "Why? We are married, going to a restaurant is a standard type of date." His monotone made it even more obvious he was talking down to him. "You do realize that right?"

"Of course I know that!" He whispered harshly back "But let me remind you Seto Kaiba, the last few times we went to out to eat together it was with your rich tycoon friends making business proposals, in which case I was a prop more than anything. And the first time we did, you ambushed me with the proposal that started this all. I was under the impression there was no underlying romantic connotations to this agreement."

"Nonetheless, we do have appearances to keep up." Kaiba explained nonchalantly, taking a mental note of the blond's fingers tapping on his own thigh.

"Do you... " Jonouchi kept tapping, a nervous habit he had picked up recently from being in the brunet's office hours on end, and being forced to listen to the constant typing. "Do you even  _like_ me, let's not go as far as in a romantic sense, but do you even like me as a person?"

"Do  _you,_ Kastsuya?" Kaiba countered back, seeming exasperated himself "I'm not even particularly discourteous towards you, but all I get is enmity in return." Jonouchi had to hand it to Kaiba, he had an extensive vocabulary. Nevertheless he… had a point, at least. It was true that besides a few half-hearted jabs at his intelligence, Kaiba hadn't been cruel to him in the slightest, sure a bit  _distant_ but that was a given considering his profession. Jonouchi himself, however, made his dislike of his spouse no secret. "I'm at least trying, you are making this more unpleasant for yourself than I have."

Although he was well aware he was in the wrong and Kaiba had a point, Jonouchi wasn't one to give into the notion very quickly "We'll excuse me for being married to an  _asexual sea sponge_ with the emotional capacity of a kitchen sponge- are you laughing?" He cut himself off from his rant when his… spouse, started to chuckle.

"Asexual sea sponge?" Kaiba echoed, seeming amused "Not one I hear too often except from my brother. The media prior to you seemed convinced I was some sex crazed deviant. Rich equals playboy is a common assumption."

"Um… Okay?" Weren't they arguing a minute ago? Kaiba was a confusing guy. Or perhaps his monotonous lack of emotion was just a front, perhaps he was more skilled at manipulating emotion than Jonouchi gave him credit for. He was definitely skilled at catching him off guard.

The food was finally brought to them as Jonouchi was collecting his thoughts. Not up to continue their conversation, he ate quietly, but kept a displeased expression on his face out of spite.

"I didn't answer your question, you know." Kaiba said as he ate neatly.

"Are you going to?" Jonouchi inquired.

"Only if you answer mine."

Jonouchi sighed deeply. "Look, I don't - I don't  _hate_ you okay? I mean, I'm not madly in love with you or anything because you're an apathetic asshole who made it really fucking hard to save the world sometimes when we were younger because you didn't seem to understand the concept of 'one of us isn't stronger than all of us', but you have admirable qualities" The blond explained, but didn't quite want to seem too fond of his counterpart "And… I guess you're not ugly?" He offered.

"Well, aren't you amorous." Kaiba replied sarcastically.

"Well… Are you answer my question this time?"

"Another time."

Jonouchi paused. "...Asshole."

"I never confirmed I'd answer if you did."

"You're clever, even if you are an asshole, I'll give you that."

"See, now is it so hard to be civil towards me?"

" _Yes,_ because you're an asshole."

"Still going to compare me to an orifice?" That time Jonouchi actually laughed a little. Kaiba was a dispassionate individual, but he was kind of funny. That was something at least. Maybe… just maybe being hitched to him could be at least bearable.

...At  _least._

* * *

"How are you cold?" Kaiba asked, a few minutes after their flight back started. In the rear-view mirror he had he could see the blond wrapping his arms around himself.

"That place had the A/C cranked up as high as it would go." Jonouchi answered, although also he hadn't yet re-acclimated to Japan after being in Texas for so long. Anything under twenty-five Celsius was cold to him. And he'd neglected to bring a jacket with him to the restaurant, a mistake he always seemed to make, but only when he went to places with the A/C up all the way.

"I have my trench coat folded under my seat, you can grab it if you're that cold." Kaiba explained, Jonouchi looked at him dumbfounded "Well? Are you going to take it or not?"

"It's just… Was that a  _kind_ gesture? From you?"

"I think we've established I'm not the Devil, Katsuya. " Jonouchi shrugged and grabbed the aforementioned trench coat out from under the chair, he knew that Kaiba had multiple copies of his trademark white coat, but he was beginning to suspect he had one stashed in each mode of transport and/or place of dwelling. "My brother used it as a blanket frequently when he was younger."

"Thanks, Kaiba." Jonouchi said as he draped the garment over himself. It smelled like a cross between new book and keyboard cleaning putty. The blond looked out and window and watched the quick, but brightly lit flashes of towns and cities, and the blur of clouds that they were passing along the coast "You know it ain't a bad view from here." He said almost softly, he was tired from the day and the full stomach wasn't helping.

"It isn't." Kaiba replied, still monotone.

"You know, I just realized you're operating a vehicle after drinking. Not very responsible of you." The realization dawned on him; Kaiba had drunk a whole bottle of sake.

"I can handle alcohol well." Kaiba excused, not even glancing back.

"You are a  _twig._ "

"And you're an imbecile, if you want to continue this name-calling game. Relax, we'll make it back to the mansion fine."

"I refuse to relax! You just drank whole bottle of forty-proof sake, and now you're driving a jet!"

"Oh what are you going to do, breathalyze me?"

"If I had one I would!"

"It's too late to protest now; we've already taken off and the next HLZ I'm authorized to land on is fifty miles away a different direction."

"Well go in that direction then! I know you equipped this jet to take turns and god help me if I'm going to die in a plane crash it won't be in this one!" Jonouchi practically growled - while he could tell that Kaiba could handle his alcohol extremely well considering his underwhelming build, he still wasn't going to take that risk.

Kaiba was silent at first, but then he sighed and shifted the control stick of the jet "We'll land there and spend the night in a small house I have hidden in that area, okay? If you're going to be touchy about drinking at least voice your concerns before we take off flying." His chest twisted a little, he tried to be as civil as possible when it came to other people drinking, but sometimes his abhorrence to alcohol consumption was something he couldn't keep to himself.

"Fine." Jonouchi agreed with a sigh of relief, he turned his head again to stare out the window. He blinked once or twice before everything went dark.

* * *

"Hmmnpph..." Jonouchi hummed as the darkness transitioned to fuzzy light, and he blinked until it was clear. He was still lying down as he lazily looked around to study his surroundings. He was in a modest looking averaged sized room, not too different from his own bedroom at the Kaiba mansion. It had a desk, a dresser, a closet and a bedside dresser.

He was lying in a queen sized bed with beige coloured sheets, under a fluffy dark blue comforter, and head resting in on a pillow that matched the beige color of the sheets, there was a second pillow being occupied by Kaiba-

Wait.

Wait just one minute.

Occupied by  _Kaiba?_

Kaiba was lying in the bed with him.

"AHHHHHH!" He cried out and tried to shove Kaiba out of the bed, however Kaiba's side was against the wall so Jonouchi just ended up pushing himself off. His shouting, coupled with the shoving, and thudding against the floor did at least succeed in waking the brunet up.

Now on the floor, Jonouchi rolled onto his back and looked up to see Kaiba peering down at him from the bed. "What's wrong with you?"

"WHY ARE WE IN THE SAME BED?!" Jonouchi practically screeched, scooting up until he was sitting up to glare at the CEO.

"You were asleep when we landed, I drove us here and you were still asleep."

"BUT WHY THE SAME BED?!"

"This is one of my small safe houses, there's only one bedroom." The brunet explained as he got up. "Besides, we are married, it's not exactly a new concept that we'd share a bed at some point." Jonouchi scowled as he adjusted to sit criss-cross, then noticed he was in a plain white shirt and sweat bottoms.

"Did… did you change my clothes?!"

"You are a heavy sleeper." Kaiba deadpanned.

Jonouchi got up and was extremely tempted to just punch him but opted not too, punching his own spouse reminded him too much of certain bad memories, no matter how much he didn't like Kaiba he wouldn't do anything like that. He wasn't that type of man. "Did you touch me?" He asked harshly, his fists balled.

"If you mean inappropriately, of course not. I know your opinion of me is low, but I would never stoop to molesting you in your sleep like some greasy pervert." Kaiba stared down at him hard, clearly offended by the accusation "If you'd believe that, that would be pleasant. Now, before you ask, all I did was change your shirt and trousers, I did not take your undergarments off. Now, leave me alone, I'm not in the best mood without my first cup of coffee." With that, Kaiba turned and walked out of the room. Leaving a dumbfounded, albeit kind of guilted, Jonouchi.

"...Asshole." He muttered, and looked for something in the closet to change into.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HLZ: Helicopter landing zone
> 
> Authors note: Originally I was going to call this chapter 'A Date with the Devil', to refer to Jonouchi's disdain towards Kaiba, but somehow that turned into The Devil Came Down to Kozue, as a pun on the song 'The Devil Came Down to Georgia'. Kaiba continues to leave his feelings towards Jonouchi vague. I'll give you a hint; they're not strong. Yet, at least. If you're wondering where I've been, I've just been swamped at work and now once I go home all I want to do is sleep, eat and complain.


	7. Monoblack

**Chapter 6: Monoblack**

"Aaaand, you win again."

"You're sounding pretty bored there."

"We've been playing back-to-back for like three hours."

"Just one more match come on."

"Does your husband even know you play this game?"

Jounouchi was a little better at holding his flinch at the word 'husband' but his face probably betrayed just a little bit of disdain.

Currently, he was sitting at a gaming tabletop in the Kame Game Shop, across from his was Ryuzaki looking a bit bored, but also amused. Between them was two decks from Magic The Gathering, Jounouchi's being black-devotion, and Ryuzaki's being an Eldrazi theme deck. "If K-  _Seto,_  knew that I was 'cheating on duel monsters', he'd probably throw my ass to the curb worse than if cheated on him." He said jokingly, trying to hide the actual, literal disgust he had for being hitched to Kaiba.

"I don't know what you see in this game." Ryuzaki told him, shuffling the deck. "I can't seem to win." Ryuzaki was wearing his school instructor uniform, which was a white button down shirt with a purple-gray tie, tucked into black slacks, a brown belt, and suede sensible shoes.

"Come onnn man, I even gave you my better deck." Jounouchi reminded him "I've just been playing this game for a while… also, you can't keep calling instant cards trap cards." Jounouchi had a short shift that day, but hadn't changed out of his scrubs yet; he was wearing dark green scrubs with a white long-sleeved cotton shirt underneath, and blue running shoes; but his scrub top was draped over the chair and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows.

"How'd you even get into this?" Ryuzaki asked, handing Jounouchi the Magic deck back.

Jounouchi contemplated for a minute, racking his brain "Before I worked as a CRNA, I worked at BAM-C initially as a CNA." He explained, folding his arms in front of him "Don't ask me what BAM-C stands for because everyone just calls it BAM-C, so I forgot what the acronym stood for. But anyways, it was the big hospital on the San Antonio Military base, so I had on-post access. Sometimes I would go to the PX - again I don't remember the acronym, but it's basically a shopping center for military personnel. I would go to the PX during lunch breaks, and there would always be this big group of trainees there."

Ryuzaki was already looking lost; he didn't have the complex context of any military system, let alone the American one, to understand the background.

Jounouchi decided to just explain the joint base itself. "Joint Base San Antonio was the medical hub for the entire US military, so not only was there a large concentration of military members whose jobs were medical, but  _all_ of the militaries medical training was done for soldiers, sailors and airmen."

"What about the marines?" Ryuzaki asked, taking a long drink from a water bottle.

"US marines don't have medics - usually they gets a corpsman from the Navy to be their medic." Jounouchi explained "Anyways, there's thousands of trainees on the joint base at any given time. When I first got there, I asked a group of trainees to show me around… I asked them to duel and they didn't play duel monsters, but Magic the Gathering is super popular there, so they ended up showing me how to play. We hung out for about eight weeks." A small smile appeared as he remembered that group; two men, and two women in their mid-to-late twenties. They were training to be army medics, but were older than a good portion of their 'battle-buddies', most of whom were fresh out of high-school.

He remembered how the two males, Rowe and Bermudez, were both on crutches for shin-splints, but managed to get out of them by the end. The two females, Casallas and Slack, were an interesting pair. Casallas's first language was Columbian Spanish, so Bermudez, who was second generation Puerto Rican on the mainland US, would occasionally break out into full-blown conversations in Spanish with her, leaving the rest of the group confused. Slack was a lesbian, married with her wife currently serving in the US Marines.

"Why just eight weeks?" Ryuzaki asked.

"They were in training… they graduated and got sent to duty stations all over." Jounouchi explained wistfully; he himself had been there for their graduation ceremony, "I'm still friends with them on Facebook… From there on, I kept making friends with military trainees, and playing Magic, or Duel Monsters with them, up until I stopped working at BAMC to move back to Japan."

It hadn't been the easiest time for him; he, as a CNA, was the bottom of the food chain of Nurses, and being one of the few males in a mostly female profession lead a lot of his fellow nurses to either immediately feel threatened by him, hate him, or fawn all over him - which normally he wouldn't mind, but with how touchy some patients got, hooking up was the last thing on his mind at the time during that period.

All he had wanted was to sleep at a decent time, and to get enough bathroom breaks that he wouldn't get a UTI every four months. He was also far away from all of his friends and family, being in the middle of Texas, so he was mostly alone. Naturally, he gravitated towards military personnel, especially the students, who understood what it was like to be far away from all of your loved for the sake of your education and job.

"That's actually pretty great Jounouchi, don't you miss it?" Ryuzaki asked.

Jounouchi thought about it, then he frowned. "Honestly… Yeah." He answered sadly "I made a lot of friends there man, some of those students did get stationed at San Antonio, I had all of these niche friend groups on and off the job, I was pretty much the charge nurse at ..." He trailed off "It's not that I hate being home, Ryuzaki… It's just that, now everyone else is gone and I feel like I'm right back where I was as a CNA; alone, at the bottom tier of a hospital." He rested his head into his folded arms, stomach now twisted.

"You're not totally alone," Ryuzaki assured, placing his hands together in front of him "you have Kaiba."

"...Yeah." Jounouchi muttered, a little muffled by his sleeves. That didn't help, really. "We always seem to not be home at the same time, though." He said; he was trying to be vague as possible to keep this charade up. The truth was he and Kaiba mostly left each other alone, and when they were together Jounouchi wanted nothing more to be away from him, he had so much anger and resentment because the CEO had cornered him and dragged him away from his life, which had been going mostly fine save for his student loan debt.

"Why not just have plans to be home at the same time?" Ryuzaki asked "Me and Haga have similar issues… we're both always busy, but we have designated hours and days that we'd be home, so we could spend it together."

"-Seto isn't the easiest person to try to request that," Jounouchi told him with a resentful shrug, looking to the side a bit to avoid Ryuzaki's eyes "he's running a company. There's no point in asking."

"But… Have you tried?" The brunet pressed.

"N… No…?" Jounouchi replied honestly.

"You should. It doesn't hurt to ask. You have nothing to lose, and if anything you at least have feeling a little less alone to gain." The other duelist made perfect sense… only if the marriage was real and not a sham. He and Kaiba did not love each other, they weren't even friends, and never had been. They didn't enjoy each others company, but then again…  _Could_  they really just not get along, or was that all they expected?

They had never truly even tried to hang out. Jounouchi tried befriending Kaiba back when they were teens and saving the world, but Kaiba made it abundantly clear that he viewed the blond as nothing more than an inferior duelist and person, and had no interest in making friends with anyone.

Well, now they were stuck with each other for a while.

"Thanks Ryuzaki," Jounouchi told the younger man, sitting up again "I think I'll try."

"Well, I'm tired and I have dozens of tests to grade, so I'm going to head home." Ryuzaki said, getting up. Jounouchi nodded and stood up as well, grabbing his scrub top from the chair and hastily sliding it on over his head. "You do that, I think I'll help gramps clean up shop for the day."

* * *

"Hey Kaiba," Jounouchi said as he walked into the office of his… spouse. The BEWD master was sitting behind his desk and usual, typing away. He had a large expanse of manila folders and paper work scattered across his desk that he seemed to just be ignoring at this point. Not that he could blame him.

"Katsuya," He acknowledged, his eyes flicked up "you know that you're only allowed to wear black, blue or white scrubs at that hospital right?"

"Yeah, they haven't stopped me though because they're afraid I'll complain to you." Jonouchi shrugged.

"It's the workplace dress code. One that  _I_ personally put in."

"You want to see how many fucks I give Kaiba?"

"Katsuya,"

"I have exactly one, let me count it for you."

"If you-"

"Zero," Jounouchi held a fist up "one." He lifted up his middle finger to 'count' "Exactly one fuck." Kaiba gave him a long look before inhaling deeply, and then exhaling loudly through his nose. "Here, let me point at the one fuck for you." He used his other middle finger to point to his 'one fuck given' finger.

"Whatever. Whatever brought you here, I'm presuming it wasn't just to flip me off?" Kaiba asked, resting his chin on top of his hands.

"You should take a break-." Jounouchi started, but then paused, not sure how to proceed with this conversation.

"Maybe. And  _you_ should make a point." Kaiba retorted cooly, still looking at him with completely disinterested eyes.

" _Look_ ," Jounouchi said exasperated "you pulled me away from my job, my friends, my  _life_ in America. All of my friends here are gone so technically all I really have is you."

"It's too early for a divorce, Katsuya." Kaiba deadpanned, returning to his work, assuming Jounouchi was trying to call it quits.

"Oh god if only." Jounouchi snorted, crossing his arms "I'm not here for that, though. I'm keeping up my end." He strode over to the desk, looking down at the sitting CEO. When he was in front of the desk and Kaiba was still just looking at his screen, Jounouchi slammed his palm on the surface of the desk to get his attention.

Kaiba didn't jump in surprise, but he did turn his eyes back up, looking annoyed "Then what do you want?"

"Urghhh," Jounouchi groaned, pinching the skin between eyes "Look… I'm sorry I was an ass the other day about the safe house stuff. I shouldn't have accused you of being grabby." He apologized, trying to sound sincere, and he really did mean it, but he too was annoyed.

Kaiba continued to look up at him, and after a not blinking for probably two minutes, he finally said "And?"

"I just… I just want to be cool with you okay? Er, I mean, can we just be cool? I don't like you, and you don't like me, but I don't think it needs to stay that way." Jounouchi told him, the brunet quirked a brow. "We have to start somewhere on this whole 'not hating' each other thing..."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Kaiba asked monotonously, the word 'propose' made Jounouchi have a Vietnam-war-style PTSD flashback to when Kaiba dragged him into this marriage.

"Let's… uh, hang out for a bit." Jounouchi suggested, probably sounding awkward.

"I'm busy." Kaiba disregarded.

"I know, but you need a break. I'm not asking for a trip to Kaibaland," Jounouchi insisted, when Kaiba didn't answer him he grabbed the fabric of the shoulder of his blazer to get his attention back "Just… let's go for a quick walk outside. You can get some fresh air and stretch your legs, de-stress, and all of that."

"No."

"As much as I hate to say it; we  _are_ married." Oh god saying that out loud made him want to throw up because of how true it was, but also how much he hated it. "You said it yourself, we have appearances to keep up. If we're only together in highly public events, doesn't it look suspicious? We have to be together in more casual settings too, you know."

Kaiba seemed to think about it for a second, and Jounouchi thought for sure the CEO would just reject him and tell him to fuck off so he could keep working. To his surprise, Kaiba slowly rose from his desk chair, and took off his blazer, draping it over the desk chair.

"Fine, let's go. There's a garden area behind the building for employees, we can take a walk around there for a few minutes." Kaiba told him, walking out of the door, when Jounouchi stood there in surprise for a second, Kaiba popped back in, hooked his arm with his, and practically dragged him out of the office.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Well I updated again, see you guys in two years.
> 
> JKJKJK, I'm back into writing. Jounouchi hangs out with Ryuzaki now because he has no other available friends. Also, Jounouchi plays magic the gathering as well as duel monsters. He isn't the American champion because he isn't a main character of the magic the gathering anime, but he's decent at it. He prefers to play it for fun and social groups. Kaiba gets flipped on in a way-too-long middle finger gag that I'm proud of because I'm a garbage person when it comes to dumb humor.


	8. Goosebumps

**Chapter 7: Goosebumps**

"Something that starts with B."

"..."

"It's green."

"..."

"It's all around us - come on Kaiba are you even trying?" Kaiba still said nothing and Jonouchi decided to just give up on their one-sided game of 'I spy', and instead quieted down as he looked down to the sidewalk. "It was 'bushes', by the way." Jonouchi muttered to the CEO, who continued to ignore him.

They were walking through the Kaiba Corp gardens, and to be honest, it was one of the most gorgeous gardens Jonouchi had ever seen. There were all varieties of colourful flowers and delicate trees, all of the foliage was pruned and maintained, the gravel parts didn't have a single rock out of place, and the sidewalk itself was clean with minimal scuffing and not a single crack.

For somewhere Jonouchi had never seen or even heard Kaiba mentioning, it was obviously well cared for and Kaiba hadn't been skimping on the price for quality of service for what had to be at the least weekly maintenance.

"Aren't you fun company?" Jonouchi commented, putting his hands behind his head as he walked. They must have looked like quite the pair; a man in nurses scrubs walking with relaxed shoulders, and a man dressed in a suit who walked with a straight back and arms swinging fluidly nine inches to the front six inches to the back as if marching.

"I'm not exactly known for being a barrel of fun." Kaiba replied, finally speaking up.

"And here I thought you had gone deaf." Jonouchi muttered in regards to his… spouses, lack of speaking.

"I might one day with your loud voice."

"Why you little-"

"Quiet down, some employees are out here." Kaiba pointed at, specifically pointing to the designated smoking area.

"Do you smoke?" Jonouchi asked, more for the sake of conversation than anything else.

"No." Kaiba answered bluntly "Do you?"

"Only back when I was a CNA." Jonouchi shrugged.

"Must've been stressful."

"Well, yeah; mostly it was those lower enlisted military personnel though." Jonouchi explained "You see, there's regularly smokers, and then there's the US military I swear… every other kid I was working with was like 'hey man you want to smoke'? 'Wanna come grab a cigarette with us?' or 'Can I get a cigarette?', once I was out of of BAMC it was pretty easy to quit."

"Interesting." Kaiba deadpanned, and Jonouchi wasn't sure if he meant it or if he was mocking him in some underhanded way. Not that Jonouchi cared, because he was an asshole anyways.

From the benches and the other end of the walk path Jonouchi saw that some of the employees were staring at them; likely they almost never seen their CEO out of his office, or with his 'husband' outside of highly public functions.

' _Maybe_ _ **they**_ _think it's a sham..._ ' Jonouchi though, reaching over and taking Kaiba's hand in his on instinct; the brunet didn't move but Jonouchi felt his stiffen slightly even as he continued to walk. "Relax." He told him quiet enough no one else would hear him "It doesn't mean anything." He explained, but rubbed his thumb across the back of Kaiba's hand as if to both make the allusion seem more real, and to console the other man.

Kaiba gripped his hand back after a few moments, but Jonouchi could feel the awkwardness from the other duelist, not that he didn't understand it though; while Jonouchi was a very physical person, Kaiba was the exact opposite. As much as the guy loved Mokuba, Jonouchi seldom saw him so much as hug his brother unless if both of them had just survived the impossible. Which did happen a lot way back then, but still.

' _I can't believe I'm trying to console Kaiba while holding his hand in a fucking garden_ ' Jonouchi though, as much as he wanted to hate this he still found humor in the situation ' _I hope he remembers_ this  _after this whole facade is over, bet he'd hate this._ '

Jonouchi stiffened as well when he felt Kaiba shift the position of their hands and rubbed the back of his hand with his thumb, as Jonouchi had done earlier to him. What was normally a gesture of affection seemed so… alien, coming from someone as cold and affection-less as Kaiba.

The fact that it meant nothing, he wasn't sure if it was better or worse. It did make him awfully sad though, because he missed genuinely affectionate gestures, which he'd been lacking with the absence of his friends, and being stuck with Kaiba.

Jonouchi noticed something however, from the feel of Kaiba's hand "Your circulation is horrible." He told his… spouse.

"...What?" Kaiba inquired, looking down at him with a strange look.

"Your hands are cold, and your veins are small; males normally are very vascular, and the hands are where veins are the most superficial, yours are way too small."

"..." Kaiba said nothing but continued to stare at him.

"Do your hands turn bright red when it's cold outside?"

"Yes?" Kaiba answered, his voice still monotone.

"Yeah, bad circulation. Maybe you should consider getting a blood pressure check. Hell, I can do that for you when we get back to the mansion tonight."

"..." Kaiba had no reply for that.

"I didn't suspect hypertension with you because of your age and lack of obesity, but I really should have, you  _do_ live a very highly stressful lifestyle with little to no exercise."

"...I'm in shape." Kaiba muttered to him, rolling his eyes at Jonouchi's medical rambling. Jonouchi remembered how back right before high school graduation, during that whole 'Diva' incident when they saved the world  _presumably_  for the last time, and Kaiba's obsession with dueling the pharaoh reached its apex, the brunet had looked uncharacteristically in good shape, noticeable because of his penchant for tight black clothing. But, now that he was a medical professional, Jonouchi knew that basically anyone who's skinny but not bony could have a six pack, so it wasn't always a good indication of muscular strength and endurance.

"When was the last time you did cardio?"

"I don't see how that matters."

" _That's_  what I thought, hope you enjoy a heart attack at the ripe old age of less than thirty." Jonouchi teased, bumping his shoulder against him; Kaiba retracted completely from him, but he didn't look entirely disgusted, maybe just a little annoyed, though.

"I have an actual doctor you know." Kaiba reminded him, crossing his arms.

"I figured but when was the last time- why, Kaiba, are you  _pouting?_ " Jonouchi teased.

"Of course not, I'm not some kid."

"Oh stop, you totally are."

"Maybe you're just becoming a bit too comfortable with me."

"I mean, we're married right?" He amazed himself by saying that, and not feeling the urge to throw up.

"I suppose." Kaiba shrugged, putting his hands into his pocket. Jonouchi managed to grin up at him, but the gesture was neither acknowledged nor returned, but that was a given.

Jonouchi took a sweeping gaze around the garden as they neared the end of the path, the loop that returned to the Kaiba Corporation building "You know… This place is really pretty." He said "You should consider taking more walks."

"You should consider taking more visits." Kaiba said, he seemed to realize the implications of what he said quickly though, and added "Because there is rumors about us." And he quickly walked off, leaving Jonouchi there by himself.

"...I guess Ryuzaki was right." Jonouchi said quietly to himself, grinning a bit "Maybe we don't have to hate each other..." He started back into the building, and to the company parking area where his car was waiting.

* * *

"Thank you." Jonouchi told the home cook as she handed him dinner at the table, smiling at her. She merely nodded and curtly bowed before leaving; Jonouchi took a good look at her long slender legs and shapely bottom through her cook uniform as she left; no short skirt today but she was still a sight. As much as Jonouchi liked guys, it wasn't like his attraction for females was going to be wiped clear.

Tonight's meal consisted of white rice, miso soup, a side of pickled vegetables and a salmon filet. True Japanese meals were a bit of a hassle to get in Texas, and while San Antonio was multicultural the most prominent demographic of Easterners in that area was South Koreans. And they weren't always friendly to Japanese people.

He'll always remember speaking to a visiting Korean soldier, who, thinking Jonouchi was American - not an unfair thought, but still - explained that to tell the difference between the Asian demographics was that " _Japanese look like Koreans but with fucked up teeth. And Chinese are fucking ugly."_ If Jonouchi hadn't learned patience from having frustrating, sometimes mentally deficient patients, he would have punched the guy.

He heard footsteps approaching, at first he thought the cook was returning or maybe the maid was coming to clean up, but when he looked over his shoulder he instead saw his… spouse, standing there. "Good evening." Jonouchi greeted, not putting his utensils down, instead opting to focus on eating again once he had greeted the brunet.

Kaiba sat at the other end of the table, his head in his hands, Jonouchi looked over and kept eating, it wasn't until a few minutes went by he spoke up again.

"You okay?" He asked "Headache or something? You'd get headaches less often if you didn't have high blood pressure you know." He attempted to crack a joke; the CEO opened his cobalt eyes and glared at him. "Geeze, if looks could kill." Jonouchi muttered, still eating.

"There was an electrical error with a rollercoaster at the local Kaibaland, and it ended up closing down the whole park for the day, and when the contractors looked over the grid, they find that the whole electrical systems needs an update and the hardware has to be completely replaced. So now the park is going to be closed at least a week." Kaiba explained, rubbing his temples with his fingers.

"Huh." Was all Jonouchi could offer. "I'd offer some advice or words of encouragement, but I'm a healthcare provider, so I don't think I can say anything technological to a literal prodigy when I can't fix my own duel disk."

Kaiba seemed to think for a second, absorbing the other mans statement "Are you  _still_  using the same duel disk from Battle City?"

"...Yeah." Jonouchi admitted, scratching the back of his head.

"Why didn't you replace it?"

"Remember that new duel disk system you released when we graduated?"

"What about it?"

"Well, you had one, and you gave one to Yugi for free, and the commercially available ones were like twice the cost of your average smartphone so I never got to buy one while I was here. And it's Japanese exclusive, so I couldn't get one while I was in America." Jonouchi explained, finishing up the rice and placing the chopsticks on top of the empty bowl.

"You didn't get one when you came back? It's been over six months."

"Well the price went down, but I'm saving money so my sister and I can go on a trip to America during the summer."

Kaiba gave him a look that practically called him an idiot with just his eyes "You don't need to save money, I'm a billionaire." He reminded him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. In hindsight,  _it was_ , but he didn't have to rub it in his face.

Jonouchi rolled his eyes and waved off his 'concerns' "Our accounts are split, and even so I'm not interested in hand-outs for my own projects."

"I'm the one who pays you." Kaiba reminded him - it was true after all, since Jonouchi worked for a Kaiba Corp owned hospital.

"And?" Jonouchi inquired, now annoyed himself "I can take care of myself Kaiba, I've been doing it since middle school." He picked up the dishes "Whatever, if your headache doesn't go away, don't take anymore than 800 miligrams of ibuprofen in an eight hour period, and no more than 2400 milligrams in one day, I'm going to bed." He said, heading off to the kitchen.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: And in todays episode of "Jonouchi and Kaiba bitch at each other until they fall in love" Heavy in dialogue, low in plot. Take in mind there isn't much of an overarching plot, just these two bitching at each other, but these conversations do usually lead to somewhere.


	9. Combative

**Chapter 8: Combative**

Updating a duel disk wasn't a particularly arduous task in of it's own; Kaiba had done it countless times at this point, however, Katsuya's duel disk was the classic battle city era model which was horribly outdated.

It still held up extremely well, it was Kaiba Corp technology after all, it was just outdated.

His significant other had decided to take a double shift today to cover for another floor nurse, meaning that Kaiba was now home at the Kaiba mansion by himself; being an insomniac, he had a few more hours before he would actually be tired, so he decided to take this time and do the nurse a favour and update his duelist to the current model. It wasn't hard to find, he kept it right on the bedside drawer; old habits died hard and the blonde still kept his duel disk within arms length.

If anything, it would be suspicious if the husband of the inventor of the duel disk system and its subsequent models still carried around the classic model. Sure Katsuya was a sentimental fool, but the public wouldn't know that and Kaiba wasn't going to risk exposing the facade for something as trivial as an outdated duel disk.

Kaiba scowled as he carefully gutted the hardware from the shell of the disk - what a lot of duelists didn't realize was that not only were all duel disks connected wirelessly to the Kaiba Corp dueling mainframe, but that the duel disks themselves had a storage chip that held the information on all the duels that had happened with that disk. This was a back-up for when the disk could not connect to the mainframe for any reason, such as signal jammers or in Katsuya's case, sheer distance.

The disk hadn't been turned on since the blonde had returned from America, so it hadn't synced up to the mainframe yet; no matter, he could just manually sync it up from here. Carefully, Kaiba removed the chip and inserted it onto the USB adapter; on the screen of his laptop the progress bar popped up and slowly climbed in percentage as the dueling history saved on the duel disk was uploaded; starting from Battle City, along with whether or no he'd won those duels.

Duel against who was then identified as a rare hunter; lost. Duel against Insector Haga, won. Esper Roba, Ryota Kajiki. Duel against Yugi at the docks; draw. Rishid, win. Marik, loss by default. Kaiba, loss, not like the result would have ever been different. Yugi Motou, win-

_What?_

"What?" Kaiba repeated his own thought out loud, staring at the result in shock; right after Battle City, Yugi and Katsuya had a duel and the blond actually won.

That… Couldn't be right?

Could it?

He clicked on that specific duel, scrolling through the cards used and the timestamps and life points as it progressed… and, no, it checked out, this was a legitimate duel. The cards used and specific strategies used by each duelist were very characteristic of both of them at the time. Interestingly, during that duel Yugi was the one using the Red Eyes Black Dragon - in fact, Katsuya hadn't used his Red Eyes at all for Battle City except for that duel with the rare hunters, up until after this duel with Yugi, this implied that they had dueled for ownership of the Red Eyes.

Surely Yugi let his best friend win? No. It didn't make sense either way. It didn't make sense that Katsuya beat Yugi, but it also didn't make sense that Yugi or the Pharaoh would let the blond win out of pity, that wasn't what they were like. Both of them had believed that holding back was insulting to their opponent.

Kaiba felt his hand tense almost enough to crack the USB adapter, but he kept his composure as he stared hard at the results of that duel. Katsuya couldn't beat him, so how could  _he_ beat the Pharaoh?

* * *

"-And so I told the guy,  _'This is the most wretched hive of scum and villainy I've ever encountered, and I used to work for the VA!'_." Jonouchi joked to his nurses, who broke into laughs and giggles. A small group of them were in the Staff Break room; most of their resident patients were asleep for the night, so they could relax for a little bit. Now that some time had passed since he started working there, he finally gained some genuine respect from the other nurses who had earlier either resented him, or blindly kissed his ass because of who he was married to. ( _Gag_ )

"Kaiba-sama." One of the nurses suddenly said.

"Yes?" Jonouchi answered, managing to not cringe this time as he'd got used to being called that.

"No-" She said, looking up. Blinking, Jonouchi slowly turned around and saw Kaiba standing literally inches right behind him, making Jonouchi jump back several feet while clutching his chest. He didn't even hear the guy open the staff room door!

" _Jesus Christ._ " Jonouchi said in English on instinct, trying to regain composure as he stood back up straight, but his hand was still clutched over his chest "H-hey  _dear._ " He greeted in Japanese, forcing a grin as he looked up at the blue-eyed CEO, to keep up allusion "What brings you here? You don't normally visit me." He tried to sound upbeat, but there was probably some awkward stumbling in his tone. Hopefully the other nurses chalked it up to fatigue and surprise. That was a big 'hopefully' too, women were way too perceptive when it came to emotion.

"We need to talk." Kaiba said, bluntly; the CEO was dressed in his 'business casual' attire of his purple trench coat without armbands, black turtleneck and jeans with KC belt, and brown loafers.

Jonouchi raised an eyebrow, straightening up "Umm… Okay." He replied "Let's go to my office then..." He turned to one of the more experienced LVN's "Ito, you keep an eye on my patients until I'm done with my- my uh,  _spouse._ " He tried so hard to say husband but he couldn't, and oh god he hoped they didn't catch his reluctance. As soon as she nodded the CRNA felt Kaiba grab his arm and practically drag him out of the staffroom.

"Third room on the right of the -  _ouch._ Geeze guy, you really got the whole 'tender, love and care' thing don't dontcha?" Jonouchi said sarcastically, hissing slightly from the near deathgrip on his arm. "Seriously Kaiba, I'm following you. You don't have to drag me."

Kaiba said nothing, he opened the door of Jonouchi's office and shoved him into the room, almost throwing him. Jonouchi grabbed the edge of his desk to get steady footing again "Were you always this violent? I thought you got over this after the Death T."

"-After the  _what_?" Kaiba said, having no clue what he was talking about.

"Nothing, nothing." Jonouchi dismissed, than crossed his arms angrily "Now, you want to tell me what crawled up your ass and died?  _Besides_  your head."

"You beat Yugi?"

"..." Jonouchi looked up and over at him in confusion.

" _You_ beat Yugi?" Kaiba repeated, striding over to him until they were only inches apart; his eyes were intense, not necessarily angry, but he definitely wasn't happy.

"...What?" Jonouchi inquired. What the hell was Kaiba talking about? Jonouchi hadn't seen Yugi in years!

"After Battle City." Kaiba pressed, Jonouchi thought for a moment, and then it clicked.

"Uhhh." Was all Jonouchi could say at first. Oh god, he thought Kaiba was over this obsession with defeating Yugi; the guy went to the  _afterlife_ just to challenge the Pharaoh for Gods sake!

"Well?!" Kaiba near growled, reaching over and gripping the shorter mans shoulders, pushing him against the desk. Jonouchi gasped in surprise, but snapped back and glared up at him.

"For one thing, would you not touch me?" Jonouchi demanded, pushing against Kaiba's chest in an attempt to push him away, but Kaiba's height and position advantage prevented this "And another thing, would you cool it for a second?! We're in the middle of a graveyard shift in a childrens hospital, and you're here, making a scene because of a duel that happened almost ten years ago?!" Jonouchi almost shouted, feeling his professional demeanor melt away to his anger and frustration.

Kaiba uprooted his entire life by using his own financial situation against him, dragged him all the way to Japan for a sham marriage that insulted legitimately loving homosexual relationships everywhere, forced him to work for a hospital that he himself owned, making him have to start over with basically no friends around, and now he had the gall to come here and get angry over his duel with Yugi after Battle City.

The CRNA felt his fist curl up against Kaiba's chest and start to shake, he willed himself to not punch to other man, who at the end of the day was still legally his spouse, whether he liked it or not ' _I'm not my dad_ ' he thought over and over. ' _That's not who I am'._

"Answer me correctly." Kaiba demanded, gripping Jonouchi's scrub top and pushing him back onto the desk until he was practically bent over backwards and lying on the desk on his back, with Kaiba hovering over him, the movement made his name placard fall over.

"Why does it matter to you so much!" Jonouchi growled, still pushing against Kaiba's chest trying to shove him off.

"How could a third rate duelist like  _you_ beat Yugi!" Oh so  _this_ was what it was about huh. Well Jonouchi wasn't going to take that insult lying down, even if he was technically lying down right now.

"Yeah I won a duel against Yugi! What are you going to do about about it?!" Jonouchi practically yelled.

The CEO's azure eyes narrowed and became inflamed, like light reflecting off of ice, he wasn't pleased. However, before he could reply, the door suddenly opened.

The two men looked over at the now open door and saw Ito standing there; she nearly dropped the patient chart in her hands, surprise clear across her features. At first, Jonouchi wondered why, and then he realized what a sight they had to be; the lights in the office were out, Kaiba was pinning him against the desk, and Jonouchi had his hands against his chest.

"I... " Ito said slowly, but she lost her words in shock.

He wasn't sure if Kaiba realized the compromising position they were in; he just glared over his shoulder at the LVN as she stared at them.

"It's uh… Not what it looks like?" Jonouchi said, unconvincingly.

"...I'll knock next time." Ito said, and backed out, closing the door.

With Kaiba distracted Jonouchi finally slid out from under Kaiba, taking several steps away and holding his arms out in front of himself to ensure that there would be distance between them "I think you've done enough here, Kaiba." He said, solemnly, biting his lip.

Kaiba straightened up, he kept his distance this time but lifted his chin a bit while looking down at him as if to threaten him with his size alone "I'm not leaving without an explanation."

"..." Jonouchi looked up at him, and narrowed his eyes almost ferally "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE." This time he really did yell, and Kaiba hadn't been expected it as indicated by the slight dilation of his eyes, even if his expression remained uniform. "We will talk about it in the fucking morning, but you need to leave right now!"

"Katsuya-"

" _I will divorce you._ " Jonouchi threatened; the threat came out instantly, almost out of nowhere. Kaiba stiffened. What was at stake was mostly on Kaiba's end; it would be a major blow to his reputation if people found that he had bribed someone into marrying him. And it's not like he could give Jonouchi his student loan debt back in retaliation, because the blond had technically upheld his end of the deal by legally marrying him.

"...Don't make threats you don't intend to keep." Kaiba replied coldly, but Jonouchi stood his ground.

"Go." Jonouchi demanded, pointing towards the door "Just go." He was red with rage and frustration. "We'll talk about it in the morning." He repeated, softer this time.

It took a moment, but the brunet finally took a hint, and left the office, closing the office door behind him.

"Fucking… fucking..." Jonouchi muttered, stumbling to his desk and gripping the edge of it for dear life as he held his face in his other hand, visibly shaking now "Asshole..." He muttered, feeling wetness around his eyes "No..." He gritted his teeth and tried to wipe the tears away, but it seemed that more tears came for every one that he tried to dry.

He hated Kaiba. No, that was harsh, he didn't like Kaiba, but right then he had felt a lot of what felt like hatred, and the urge to physically start fighting him had scared him. He didn't like Kaiba, but Kaiba was still his significant other, and Jonouchi had vowed long ago he would never hit his spouse; but the urge had been  _so_ strong, it took literally everything he had to resist the urge to hit him. And even if it wouldn't really hurt Kaiba, who would have probably just dodged or overpower him pretty easily with his defensive training, it was the  _principle_ of it that was eating at Jonouchi.

"I'm not going to turn into my dad because of Kaiba." Jonouchi muttered to himself, grabbing some tissues and trying hard to compose himself "He isn't worth it… I'm not turning into something I fought so hard against over  _Kaiba._ "

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: Jonouchi's upbringing of his parents fighting and his dad probably being abusive has significant affects Jonouchi, including his current set of principles. He has mentioned before the urge to hit Kaiba, but he refuses because of his own experiences with domestic violence. And Kaiba's pushing him around in this chapter wasn't helping. Kaiba in the manga was actually a super violent person; he would smack people around with his briefcase and snapped fingers broken, and this was after Death-T. The whole Death-T thing happened in the manga before Duelist Kingdom, but this fanfiction follows the events of the anime and not the manga, so you can take it as Jonouchi just breaking the fourth wall; or maybe it did happen and Kaiba just doesn't remember because of the (brain damage) mind crush. Take it as you will.
> 
> Also while the duel between Yugi and Jonouchi was open-ended in the anime, I'm taking it as Jonouchi winning for this story. Sure, it's more likely that Yugi just gave him the red-eyes back, but where's the fun in that. I imagine Kaiba wouldn't know because he's too busy to just constantly check the win-lost status of Jonouchi who he thinks isn't worth it.
> 
> Please read and review!


	10. Succor

**Chapter 9: Succor**

_RIIING RING RIIIING_

Muttering, Jonouchi reached over and flicked the alarm notification on his phone off only briefly opening his eyes, he closed them again right away as he sat up in the stiff bed, resting his entire face in one of his open palms.

It'd been a little over a week since the incident with Kaiba at the hospital, and despite what he'd said he wasn't a-raring to face the CEO again. Not because he was afraid of Kaiba, but because he was afraid of his own damn anger. He needed a few days to himself away from his… spouse.

As much as he'd tried to forget, it turned out that some horrible memories from his childhood were buried a lot more shallowly than he thought. He remembered once, he wasn't sure his age, all he remembered was that he was small and powerless, and his sister was too young to understand much of what was going on… hell,  _he_  was too young to understand, all he knew at the time was that it was bad, and he needed to make sure Shizuka wasn't directly looking at it like he was.

He remembered playing with dolls with her, dolls he didn't even like, he just wanted to distract her as much as possible, and he'd just turned up the volume on the TV to drown out the sounds of of their parents arguing in the kitchen.

Shizuka asked him for some juice, and though he was hesitant he went to the kitchen to oblige her request; he walked in just in time to see the back of his fathers hand make harsh contact with the side of his mothers face.

It was quick, but it was so slow at the same time. He still remembered the distinctive sound of skin slapping skin with more contempt than he'd ever experienced up to that point in his relatively short life. He had looked up in shock and confusion as his mom backed up with a gasp, and gripped the counter, trying to get as far from her then-husband as possible.

He didn't remember what he had said, he had said something, probably calling for the attention of either of his parents; his fathers eyes were unreadable when he looked down to his young son, but his mother looked down to him with a look he would never forget.

Fear.

When his mother had left him with his father, he thought she hated him and he was so confused as to why. Didn't she love him? She would tell him over and over again how much she loved him, but when they all lived together the statement became less convincing over time. And now that he was older, he understood why; she looked at him and only saw his resemblance to his father.

And even if he understood now as an adult that she was in an abusive, neglectful relationship, and was at the end of her rope, it didn't erase all of the hurt he had felt then, and the hurt he still feels when he looked back.

So to have an domestic dispute with Kaiba that edged on physical, and to feel such a need to beat the shit out of Kaiba, it  _scared_ him. It brought back all of the helplessness, all of the sadness and all of the rage he had felt when he was younger, and it brought all of those terrible feelings back with a damn vengeance.

It reminded him of his mothers fear that he would grow up to be just like his father, because there was no way he was  _ever_ going to confirm such fears. His similarities to his father were skin deep and that was that.

Sighing, he got out of bed, slipping his feet into the slippers placed by the bed. Ever since they went out on that 'date' at Kozue he decided to delve into just how many safe houses Kaiba had. As it turned out, he actually had several safe houses in Domino alone; Jonouchi had decided to hole up in the one that was actually pretty close to Domino High School.

He guessed that this was somewhere Kaiba had frequented back when he, and probably Mokuba, still attended high school. His theory was further indicated by how lived-in it was compared to the last Kaiba safe house. The drawers and closets had clothing and school uniforms, all articles looking like they'd be used by either of the brothers, and there were random assortments of textbooks and written-in notebooks spread out throughout the house.

Yawning, the CRNA left the master bedroom and walked down the hall to the kitchen; this house was fairly simple, it had a traditional Japanese architecture but the interior was modern in it's fixtures and decor. It only had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, a study, and a kitchen.

He flicked on the kitchen lights and started a pot of coffee; he had to get some food items but the kitchen was otherwise fully stocked with kitchen utensils and appliances. Which was a little odd, because the Kaiba brothers didn't strike him as people who cooked for themselves, but he supposed he didn't know them  _too_ well. Hell, he'd been married to Kaiba for over eight months now, and he didn't even know what the guys bedroom looked like. Not that he wanted to, but still.

He placed his phone on the kitchen counter and headed to the bathroom, flipping the hot water tap on the shower and slipping in. A large sigh of relief escaped him as the hot water hit his skin; he had an affinity for extremely hot water, which was something to his knowledge was stereotypically more applicable to the fairer sex, but he figured he was already in a profession that was female dominated so it made sense he'd pick up some 'feminine' habits.

Once finished, he grabbed the robe hung up on the wall, put it on haphazardly, and walked back to the master bedroom, rubbing his eyes as he opened the door to it.

"Good morning." A monotone voice greeted him.

"Good mor-niin-AHHHH!" Jonouchi shouted, almost falling over the robe and once again throwing his hand over his heart as if having heart attack.

Sitting on the edge of the bed was Kaiba; he casually sat with his arms and legs crossed. Casual for Kaiba at least, because even though he was clearly being nonchalant he still managed to be extremely dramatic. Maybe it was what he was wearing; his melodramatic white trench coat get up that he'd been sporting since Battle City.

"Fucking hell Kaiba!" Jonouchi shouted as he pulled the robe to cover himself better "What is it with you trying to give me a heart attack before the age of thirty?!" He stood up straight and glared at his... spouse, resentfully "Did you consider… I dunno, knocking?"

"I own this house." Kaiba deadpanned, looking back at him with an unreadable expression.

"Well I know that, but still." Jonouchi scoffed, leaning against the doorframe.

"You said you would talk to me the next morning but it's been two weeks." Well he definitely didn't waste time with that now did he?

"Look I'll talk about it, but would you at least leave the room?"

"Why?"

Jonouchi stared at him hard "I'm in a bathrobe."

"I can see that." Kaiba answered deeply.

"Dude, let me get dressed first."

"Then do it." Kaiba answered impatiently.

"Not in front of you dumbass!"

"We're both men." Kaiba rolled his eyes.

"You son of a..." Groaning out loud at Kaiba's blatant lack of tact and/or assholish toying, Jounouchi grabbed the clothes he had set out on the desk and stepped into the closet to change, making sure to close the door "What do you want to know?" He asked, though his voice was most likely muffled by the door.

"You beat Yugi?" Kaiba asked.

"Yeah, after Battle City." Jonouchi confirmed "How'd you figure? It was years ago."

"The hard storage on your duel disk."

"You messed with my duel disk?"

"Your duel disk is fine," Kaiba dismissed "but, you and Yugi's duel?"

"We dueled over my Red Eyes Black Dragon," Jonouchi answered "at the beginning of Battle City, I lose it to a rare hunter… Yugi won it back for me, but I refused it. I realized I needed to grow as a duelist and a person before I deserved to have it back. When Battle City was over, we dueled over ownership of it, and I won it back."

"How come you didn't take the King of Games title for yourself?"

"Because I didn't duel over the title. I dueled for my Red Eyes."

"You valued a measly Red Eyes Black Dragon card over the King of Games title?" Kaiba sounded incredulous.

"Of course I did," Jounouchi answered as he swung the closet door open; now wearing jeans and a red t-shirt, he glared hard at the CEO even though he knew he wasn't going to intimidate him, he needed to get his point across "I respected Yugi as a duelist. I knew the true King of Games was him, he proved it over and over again, I didn't need to go to extravagant lengths like you to see it." He crossed his arms "And unlike you, Yugi respected me back. We had a great duel, we managed to have fun,  _and_ have a serious duel at the same time, as unheard of as a concept that it is to you, and I won my Red Eyes back. It's as simple as that, Kaiba."

Kaiba looked at him as if he was speaking to a five year old. "But  _how?_ "

"If you saw the duel through it's data you know every move that was made, Kaiba," Jonouchi answered, then narrowed his eyes "if you mean how a  _deadbeat_ like me could beat such an impasse like Yugi and the Pharaoh, we've told you over and over again how it can be done."

"You're not talking about that ridiculous Heart of the Cards, or friendship theory, are you?" Kaiba stood up, arms still crossed, and thankfully he kept his distance.

"I am." Jonouchi confirmed, standing his ground "Me and Yugi may have been dueling each other, but we respected each others skills, we  _believed_ in each other."

Kaiba rolled his eyes, clearing not seeing the point the blond was trying to make.

"Maybe if you believed in someone besides yourself, you'd understand." Jonouchi said flatly, as he angrily walked out of the room and back to the kitchen.

He poured the steaming black liquid into a mug, and right as he put the pot back into the coffee maker, Kaiba came back into the kitchen. Jonouchi sighed deeply as he stared down at his reflection in drink. "How'd you figure I was here? I mean, I didn't leave a note but I figured you had some Kaiba Corp. tracking chip on me or something."

"The maids told me." Kaiba answered flatly; Jonouchi chuckled to himself. It figures, he did have to get the keys to this house from somewhere, after all. Silence as Jonouchi continued putting his simple breakfast together, now slicing a grapefruit in half and popping bread into the toaster. "Why did you run off?"

Jonouchi didn't look back at Kaiba, he instead gripped the countertop and glared down at his own hands "Kaiba, what you did wasn't right." He finally said.

"Oh?"

"Don't 'oh' me, Seto Kaiba." He said almost harshly, but willed his voice back down to normal "Look, we can't be how we were when we were young."

"In what regard?" The CEO inquired, Jonouchi imagined him raising his eyebrow, even if he wasn't looking at him.

"Look..." Jonouchi sighed "I can't fight you, it..." He resisted the urge to curl his hand into a fist "It sets me off."

Kaiba said nothing, but the question practically hung in the air for all to see.

"I know you didn't take much interest in our personal lives when we were young, but you know I wasn't in the best financial situation. Hell, I was permitted to have a job in middle school because of how poor me and my dad were. My dad… he's not the greatest, he's a drunk and he got into serious gambling debt that only made him drink more, and gamble more, he just kept digging this big hole, and never seemed to stop digging. Well, when I was a kid, when he was still with my mom, they would fight over his drinking and gambling, and the fights just kept getting more intense until he became physical." He admitted.

His spouse still said nothing, he figured he was trying to be just a tad more respectful by letting him talk.

"But… I saw it, I saw him smack her around, maybe only a few times, but I knew it happened a lot more than I saw. My mom, she doesn't really hate me, but I know when she looks at me she sees my dad."

The brunet spoke up "And what does that have to do with you and I?"

"I don't like you," Jonouchi replied bluntly "but we're still married.  _You_ are my spouse, and I'm yours. We can't just fight each other like we used to, that's domestic abuse and it's wrong."

Silence.

"You… You take it that seriously?" Kaiba asked; Jonouchi caught the surprise in his tone, he wasn't sure if he was referring to how seriously he took their sham marriage, or how seriously he took fighting him.

Jonouchi whirled around and faced him "Of course I take it seriously! Kaiba for god sake, I-" he gripped his head "god you frustrate me so much, you're such an asshole I swear." He shut his eyes hard "Can't you see?" He fought hard against his emotions, because there was no way he was about to lose it in front of Kaiba "I-I'm not..."

Oh god the tears were coming, he was starting to lose control over his emotions.

"I'm not a-an abuser." He spat between gritted teeth, the edges of his eyes now moist "I'm not my father."

He started breathing deeply in an attempt to calm himself down, now not even paying attention to Kaiba at all.

Maybe the CEO just didn't understand. His own early childhood was tragic in the loss of both of his parents, and then the abuse at the hands of Gozaburo, but he didn't have the same history of witnessed spousal abuse. Even if he understood it on a conceptual level, he might not understand the emotional level that Jonouchi was going through.

One hand gripped the edge of the counter, and the other hand was now covering his face as he was hunched over, still breathing deeply. The shame he felt showing all of this emotion in front of Kaiba of all people just served to compound how upset he was. He didn't sniffle, but tears were wetting the palm covering his face, and Kaiba most likely had pieced together that he was crying.

He felt arms wrap around him, almost softly, as if to barely touch him, only enough to make the gesture felt. He was surprised, but that didn't lessen his stress. He sighed heavily and said nothing to the other man.

The arms tightened and pulled him into the tall, lithe, albeit slightly cold body of the brunet. He wasn't sure how to react, because, he wasn't expecting this, and would never in a million years expect this kind of thing from Kaiba. And clearly Kaiba hadn't been expecting to do this either, because he didn't make any further moves.

"I'm… I apologize." Kaiba told him, Jonouchi didn't reply.

Slowly, Jonouchi pulled back the hand that was on the countertop, and drew it around Kaiba in return; his heart was starting to pound both from the distress, and the unexpected comfort being offered to him from the least likely person.

"No violence." Jonouchi muttered quietly, tightening his arm around Kaiba as he drank in the physical affection, something he sought in most relationships, but been starved of in this loveless contract marriage. "No physical violence again." His eyes were still moist but the tears had stopped flowing, so he pulled his hand away from his face and wrapped it around Kaiba as well, almost reluctantly. He dare not look the brunet in the face, it would only make the awkwardness more obvious.

"Alright, Katsuya," Kaiba agreed, as he, surprisingly softly, tightened his arms around him as he held him "no more physical violence." Jonouchi closed his eyes and rested his head slightly against Kaiba's chest. He would be tempted to tell Kaiba that his BPM was too high, but he'd save that for another time.

Right now… he just wanted things to be calm between them.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Finally some positive physical interaction. Well, bittersweet really, but still. Looks like Kaiba has a comforting side, and maybe a guilty conscience after all.
> 
> So Jonouchi has a lot of complicated feelings because of the abuse he experienced and witnessed as a child. So even though he used to be so ready to physically fight Kaiba back when they were younger, the fact that they are now married and Kaiba is his husband changes things completely from Jonouchi's perspective, even if Kaiba could wipe the floor with him. Trauma's a real bitch. But seriously, don't hit your spouse no matter what gender they are.
> 
> Please read and review!


	11. Analysis

**Chapter 10: Analysis**

If you asked Kaiba how he viewed his marriage and he answered you honestly, he would tell you it was like most other relationships in his life save for his relationship with Mokuba (familial) and the Pharaoh (lifelong rival); it was all business.

It was supposed to be a simple business deal; Katsuya legally marry him and appear with him publicly just enough to get the public and more importantly his peers in business that he was not interested in marrying anyone's daughter; and he in return would pay off the crippling student loan debt of the No.3 duelist.

Marriage was a legal process and status, and he treated it as such. He gave his spouse the courtesy of treating him with professional respect, and not calling him a deadbeat anymore like he did when they were teens.

He knew that Katsuya would accept, very begrudgingly and with enmity; not to mention he would need negotiations, and terms and conditions to this marriage. He wanted to continue working as a nurse, which Kaiba put the stipulation he'd have to work for a Kaiba Corp owned medical facility; he was not going to have sex with him either but that was fine, but he had to live at the mansion.

Once everything was signed off and done everything else was just going to be about public appearances. At least, that's what it was supposed to be like.

Kaiba hadn't expected Jounouchi to take the arrangement so  _seriously._

Perhaps seriously wasn't the right word, because took the marriage seriously, but only in the legal and professional sense. Katsuya on the other hand seemed be taking the marriage, even though it was a sham, very  _personally._

He didn't know everything about Katsuya's past, but it wasn't hard to see that he didn't have the most stable upbringing. His father was notoriously a drunk and gambling addict, his mother had divorced and moved far away with his sister. Katsuya had been working multiple jobs since middle school, which was saying something since even high school students couldn't work jobs without school permission. He had this almost emotional aversion to alcohol that seemed to bring him a deep-seated type of panic.

He figured, if anything, Katsuya should have not taken marriage seriously at all. If anything, he should have been the type who'd see no point in it, but no, he was a sentimental fool, and didn't look at their sham marriage as if it were nothing more than a signed government document.

This was very much to Kaiba's ire, because he was not the relationship type person. Yes, he was gay, he had no attraction to women and preferred the company of other men. Did he want romantic relationships with them, though? No, no he did not, such things were such a frivolous use of energy when he could be using that energy for more productive reasons. So there was no logical reason to humor his spouses delusions of sentimentality.

Just as he was unprepared to Katsuya's declaration that they had to treat each other within certain limits just because they were married, he was  _especially_ not prepared for the blond duelist to lose control of his mental state, and start crying.

He was at a loss, because he wasn't expecting this type of thing, nor did he have the most experience in knowing how to deal with it. Katsuya had always been a zealous, tumultuous person in both demeanor and actions, but in his never ending open display of his emotions, normally these were anger and excitement; but never distress like this. Hell, even during his duel with Marik when he literally stopped breathing, he hadn't shown this type of anguish, so even an apathetic person like Kaiba could see that he was deeply upset.

He'd seen upset employees, but their despair was always shallow and superficial, the type of grievances literally any overworked adult in Japan had. He'd also dealt with Mokuba's many episodes and tantrums growing, things such as nightmares, things such melancholy after being kidnapped again, but Mokuba was such an upbeat person he grew out of dependency on his brother rather quickly.

So seeing Katsuya upset to the point of literal tears, which he knew were there regardless of the blond hiding his face behind his hand, he was unsure of what to do from there. Again, the only time he'd come face to face with this type of situation was either with employees or Mokuba, and Mokuba was the only one he'd ever actually done anything about.

When Mokuba was upset usually something like consoling words or gestures were enough to calm him down, but consoling words were off the table because Katsuya was too upset to pay attention to words.

He wasn't consciously thinking about it when he put his arms around his spouse; perhaps somewhere in the back of his mind he though physical gestures of comfort was what was required of this type of situation. It was awkward, because they'd never had any sort of legitimate positive physical interaction, the closest being either hooking each others arms during business meetings, or even when they had been holding hands in the Kaiba Corp gardens, but those gestures weren't supposed to mean anything, they were  _supposed_ to be for show.

At least… they were to him. What had Katsuya considered them? Did he take those personally too?

His sudden and awkward attempt at comfort seemed to work, he observed as the blond, although slow and hesitant, drew his arms back around him in return and rested his face into his chest. He noted through the contact they now had that the other duelists heart was beating fast and hard, maybe it was surprise or maybe it was always like that, he didn't know, he wasn't the medical expert between the two of them.

"No more violence." Katsuya muttered quietly, and sorrowfully. His voice was surprisingly hollow. He frowned in spite of himself; maybe he had over reacted a little bit at the duel between Katsuya and Yugi.

That was a hard maybe though.

"Alright, Katsuya," Kaiba finally agreed, tightening his arms a little around him, he surprised himself because although this whole thing they were doing right now was extremely awkward, it wasn't wholly unpleasant "no more physical violence."

* * *

"What is this, some kind of sitcom?" Kaiba muttered to himself as he was seated on the couch; Katsuya, once he collected himself, retreated back to the bedroom presumably out of embarrassment, leaving Kaiba to himself. Normally he'd head back to Kaiba Corp or the mansion to continue working, but he had to ensure that his spouse would actually return to the mansion and not continue to hold up in this safe house, so he was going to sit and wait.

He placed his laptop on his lap as he sat, and started typing, doing just minor work for now. He let his mind wander as he did so, in this case the place it went to was the safe house. This was the house he would often go to in high school, either during lunch, or after the school day to quickly do his homework and change for work. It was also used by Mokuba for similar reasons when he attended Domino High School. Although judging by the messes the maids complained about during that period of time, Kaiba had a sneaking suspicion he also invited friends and maybe girls over, maybe threw a couple parties. Not Kaiba's style, but Mokuba didn't get into trouble with the law or get anyone pregnant, so he wasn't going to condemn his brother for enjoying his youth.

He hadn't stepped foot in the house since high school, he knew he left a few school uniforms and notebooks in the bedroom and study room, but he hadn't been completely sure what Mokuba had left here. It definitely hadn't been changed up too much, having the same household goods and appliances he remembered. He guessed the blond must have cleaned up the place a little bit, because there wasn't a thick layer of dust on everything like he expected.

His phone started to ring; he quickly pulled it out of its pocket and swept his gaze quickly over the name that flashed on the screen; 海馬. He quickly pressed the talk button and brought it up to his ear.

"Hey big brother!" He heard a cheerful voice from the other end.

"Mokuba." Kaiba greeted in return "How are your studies in Yonsei?"

"They're going great actually, I gotta say the culture here isn't too different from ours, but I was getting a haircut the other day and the hairdresser just started to massage my shoulders, and I nearly jumped out of my seat!" His younger brother explained, then paused to ask "Anyways, how are you and that bastard Jounouchi doing?"

Kaiba rolled his eyes at his brothers old nickname for his spouse back when he too was slightly more cruel and arrogant. "You know he's not Jounouchi anymore - Like I would ever take anyone else's last name." He said, he heard his younger brother chuckle on the other end.

"I know I know - say, I'm coming for a visit soon, you mind taking a day or two off? We can have a family weekend."

"Sure thing." Kaiba answered.

"No, family as in all of us."

"All of us?" Kaiba inquired.

"Well - me, you, and your husband of course. I mean… you two dated for so long and you didn't tell anyone, so I figured it was time we actually were all together at once to, you know, maybe make things a little more casual? Because, I know he's my brother-in-law now, but I really can't see him as anything other than Yugi's friend."

Kaiba's mouth was in a line - family days were meant to be a day where he and Mokuba could just spend together. "I don't know..." He said vaguely, it's not like he was going to admit to his brother that the marriage was a facade for business reasons. "It could be awkward, it would make you somewhat of a third wheel."

"Oh don't worry about me big brother," Kaiba knew his brother well enough that he could hear his brothers mischievous grin over the phone "I won't be a third or fourth wheel."

"Fourth?"

"Oh, I'm bringing my fiancée with me."

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: This chapter opens with Kaiba's POV on the last chapter. The thing about Kaiba's feelings towards Jou is that… well, he doesn't have those types of feelings for Jonouchi yet. Because, he didn't consider that this had the potential of being anything other than a business deal. So Jonouchi throwing in just how personally he took their marriage, well it's prompted Kaiba to re-evaluate what their relationship can be. Kaiba's gay but he's probably more demisexual than anything in this fanfic tbh.
> 
> If you're wondering why Kaiba refers to Jonouchi exclusively by his first name, it's actually because of his ego, it's basically him rubbing into Jonouchi's face "Haha I took your preferred name (Jounouchi) from you, now you have to go by Kaiba" but he isn't going to call him Kaiba obviously because that's what he goes by.
> 
> So apparently in the manga Mokuba's honorifics had him refer to Jounouchi as 'that bastard'. Also, he has a fiancee.
> 
> Please Read and Review!


	12. Family Day

**Chapter 11: Family Day**

"So where are we meeting Mokuba and his main squeeze anyways?" Jonouchi asked, sitting in the back of limo with his spouse, but sitting across from him. He was wearing his casual wear of a red t-shirt with dark blue jeans and black running shoes, he also had his Battle city classic duel disk attached his his arm.

"Kaibaland." Kaiba deadpanned, he was wearing a black turtleneck with black trousers held in place by a silver KC belt, and was surprisingly lacking in a trench coat and most accessories he would usually wear save for the metal bracers around his wrist, and his advanced blue duel disk system with it's connected headset over his left ear. He had his metal briefcase sitting at his feet on the floor of the limo.

"Did you know he was engaged?" Jou asked, resting his hands behind his head.

"No idea." Kaiba replied, crossing his arms over his already crossed legs "He might just be messing with us, however."

"Why would he do that?" Jonouchi asked.

"Mokuba's no fool, he probably already figured out the truth behind our union. This may just be his own form of 'payback'." Kaiba replied, Jonouchi silently nodded and awkwardly looked out the window. It had been a few days since the incident at the safe house, and both were still stewing in their own awkward feelings and observations after what had happened. Kaiba had gone back to the mansion, but the blond nurse refused to leave the safe house, where he insisted he felt more comfortable.

The arrived at Kaibaland without a hitch because Kaiba as the owner obviously had his own private, secret parking area. He grabbed his briefcase as he peeled out of the limo and Jonouchi followed him, hands in his pockets. They completely ignored the long line at the entrance and instead went through some kind of employees only entrance and were in the theme park in less than two minutes.

"So..." Jonouchi began "Where do we find Mokuba and his fiancee?" He looked over to see the brunet checking his phone for text messages.

"He says they're waiting by the amphitheatre." The brunet explained and behan walking, presumably in the direction of said landmark. Jonouchi, who was now unfamilliar with the layout of the theme park, followed, taking extra long strides to match up with Kaibas. Damn that guy for having legs for days.

There were sizable crowds of people, and Kaiba paused to scan the area for his little brother. A wave of excited park-goers cut in between them and pushed the unfortunate Jonouchi several yards away. "Son of a-" Jonouchi growled as he tried to push past the many people herded around. He whipped his head around looking for his... spouse.

He felt a hand on his forearm. "There you are-" He said, turning to face Kaiba.

Only to see it wasn't Kaiba who had tugged his forearm.

"S-Shizuka?" He stammered in shock, seeing his little sister was indeed right there with him.

"Hey big brother." She said with a huge grin that was very similar to his own, before she threw her arms around him. He recovered from his shock and hugged her back hard, lifting her up with a slight spin in his joy. He hadn't seen her in years!

Now an adult also, Shizuka had grown into her beauty. Her auburn hair was still long and down to her waist but held up in a ponytail, and her bangs were pulled into a fringe on one side of her face, and she had a conservative amount of makeup on, not that she needed it. She was currently wearing a loose, shoulder-less cream sundress with a pink, light jacket over it, and one-strap sandals that matched the jacket in color.

Still grinning, Jonouchi put his younger sister down, and she hooked her arm with his. Before he could ask the important question of what she was even doing here, he looked up to see Kaiba striding over with Mokuba at his side.

Mokuba was no longer the runty kid he once was. He was now the same impressive height of his brother, likely having been a late bloomer. His black hair wasn't as long as it used to be, being about shoulder length and mostly tame if not for a few stray strands that were sticking up a little, his bangs covered his eyebrows and framed his face, which was sharper now. His stormy blue eyes were now in a very similar shape to Kaiba's, but much more expressive. In fact, they were alight with mischief just like his smile. He was wearing an untucked light purple button-up shirt, black slacks, and brown loafers. Around his shoulder was a black messenger bag with some kind of school crest and words in Korean Hangul that Jonouchi didn't understand. Mokuba's dressing sense contrasted quite a bit with his siblings over-dramatic flair.

"Hey kid." Jonouchi greeted his brother-in-law cheerfully.

"Kid?" Mokuba scoffed playfully, and stood over Jonouchi to accentuate their current height difference "I don't think I heard you properly down there." Jonouchi rolled his eyes, but then he saw Kaiba was looking at his sister, likely also confused as to why she was there.

Shizuka was smiling softly up at the brothers.

"So, uh, it's great to see you Shizuka, but what brings you to Domino?" Jonouchi asked finally, last he checked his sister had moved from New York with their mother, to Kyoto where she worked as a coder for a software company. In fact, she'd been giving him the silent treatment since he told her he'd gotten married, for "keeping secrets" from her.

"I heard you were coming to Kaibaland." Her answered, she sounded gleeful… Almost too much so. Jonouchi's 'little shit sibling' senses were tingling.

"And how did you hear that…?" Jonouchi trailed off.

Shizuka said nothing. Instead she looked up softly at Mokuba, who, taking the cue, leaned down and kissed her, placing his hands on her hips. Shizuka unhooked her arm from her brothers and wrapped her arms over Mokuba's neck.

"..." Jonouchi's jaw dropped, he exasperatingly looked up at Kaiba who's face was still blank as always, but his eyes were just slightly rounded enough to indicate that he too did not see this coming.

The two pulled apart and looked up to their big brothers, both of them had the biggest shit eating grin that could put the Norse god Loki to shame, and had an arm around each others waists, and lifted their other hands to show off that both of them had a simple diamond ring around their left ring fingers.

"..." Kaiba didn't say anything, he shifted his gaze to his husband.

"What the fuck!" Jonouchi shouted, then covered his mouth when his exaggerated reaction earned him dirty stares from some of the many random civilians surrounding them "You- you two, how long, since when?" He tried asking all of his questions at once, which didn't seem to phase the  _couple._

Mokuba, if anything, looking amused. He kept his arm wrapped around Shizuka's waist as he began to explain "You know, before I transfered to Yonsei University in Seoul, I did my undergrad for Mechanical and System Engineering at the Kyoto Institute of Technology." The dark-haired Kaiba explained.

Jonouchi racked his brain, then remembered that was the University his sister had studied and gotten her Masters degree - … in Mechanical and System Engineering.

Shizuka was only a year older than Mokuba…

"Oh..." Jonouchi drawled slowly, then nervously scratched the back of his head "I-I see… how long have you two been…. You know?"

"We've been dating for three years," Shizuka answered, resting her head on Mokuba's shoulder "engaged for a few months."

"You uh… didn't say anything about it." Jonouchi said, and immediately regretted it.

"I could say the same to you, big brother." Shizuka said; although her tone was sassy, he saw there was a sharp look in her hazel eyes. Gee, hell really hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Kaiba cleared his throat to end the tension, he walked over and stood by Jonouchi's side, likely to feign some kind of closeness "Today's a family day is it not? We don't need to dwell on past grievances." He said.

Mokuba grinned "Don't talk so formally, it's just me bro. Me, my lovely fiancee, and your  _husband._ " The slight emphasis he put in the word husband made Jonouchi's heart skip a beat. Did he really suspect the truth? In an act of self preservation and literally nothing else, Jonouchi reached over and gripped Kaiba's hand in his own, just as he had done when they were in the Kaiba Corp gardens. Kaiba composure stayed the same, but Jonouchi felt his hand go stiff before relaxing it, still not quite used to the contact.

"We should get going, what do you two want to do first?" Kaiba asked the younger couple.

"Hmm..." Mokuba hummed and looked down to his fiancee, who winked "We actually already went ahead and reserved a spot for us in the dueling arena." The dark-haired man explained.

"You want to watch some duels?" Jonouchi asked.

Mokuba tilted his head up and grinned at his brother-in-law "You can say that." He said as he, with his arm still liked with Shizuka, began leading the way to the dueling area, when they were a little bit ahead Kaiba began dragging the still bewildered Jonouchi to follow.

"You'd think he'd want to do something like go on the Ferris wheel or something." Jonouchi said up to the brunet, who just kept dragging him, and briskly following their younger siblings.

The dueling area had several dueling stages, there were many young and veteran duelists alike clamored around the area dueling each other. The biggest stage, the one in the dead center on a big pedestal was open, Mokuba hopped up the stairs leading up to it.

"So uh, who are we watching duel?" Jonouchi asked; he saw that the platform was empty save for them. Kaiba stopped once they were up the stairs; they watched as their younger siblings went all the way to the other side.

Mokuba opened his messenger bag and pulled something out of it, with their backs facing them Jonouchi had no way of seeing what he was pulling out, but when they whirled around the nurse was dumbstruck to see both of them brandishing duel disks.

"Uhh..." The blonde looked up to his spouse, who had put his metal briefcase down, and was now messing with the contents inside "Is this a challenge?"

"It is, you should have caught on earlier." Kaiba deadpanned. Out of his briefcase he pulled something out and then yanked the nurses duel disk arm over to him.

"Hey-!" Jonouchi protested as Kaiba shoved something red over his duel disk - he blinked in surprise to see the a duel disk system almost identical to Kaiba's, only red, was now over his old duel disk. He looked up to Kaiba, who then proceeded to practically smack the matching red headset over his ear. "Is… Is this the same as yours and Yugi's?" He asked, Kaiba rolled his eyes as if he asked a stupid question, which in his arrogant perspective probably was.

"Of course it is. I told you, your duel disk was outdated." He explained simply, then activated his own blue duel disk.

Jonouchi mimicked his actions, was was taken aback when the advances system sprang to action with bright red LED lights and red holographic screen.

"I guess it's settled then." Mokuba said loudly from across the stage as he and Shizuka simultaneously activated their duel disks - Mokubas was purple while Shizukas was pink. "It's time to duel!"

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: So, I played around with the ages a little. Let's say at the end of DSOD Kaiba and Jonouchi were both 18, Shizuka was 15, and Mokuba was 14 (he's a… really late bloomer okay). The ages for this fic are currently as followed; Kaiba/Jonouchi are 25, Shizuka is 22, and Mokuba is 21.


	13. Double Date, Part 1

**Chapter 12: Double Date, Part 1.**

"I've never seen two people act like an old married couple so well, yet be so unconvinced of their marriage at the same time." Mokuba said quietly to Shizuka as they watched their two older brothers tag team with each other. Tag team being the loosest definition of the word in regards to the nurse and CEO.

Jonouchi appeared to be struggling with his holographic duel disk. The lack of physical cards seemed to be what was slowing him down, and he was clearly being overwhelmed by the neuro connection of the device, which he was not used to as this was clearly the first time he'd ever used this duel disk system.

"Just put the card in face down position already you dolt." Kaiba impatiently chastised, two of his three Blue Eyes White Dragons were already summoned, and he was antsy, probably to summon the third.

Jonouchi stopped fumbling with his red duel disk and glared up at his spouse "I'll put it into whatever position I want, damn you! Now would you be a little less annoying? I'm pretty sure this headset is giving me tinnitus in the middle ear." He had his Flame Swordsman and Eed Eyes Black Dragon summoned, along with a singular face down card.

"The headset isn't even close to the ear canal." Kaiba retorted.

Shizuka, quietly amused along with Mokuba watched, her Goddess of the Third Eye was standing side-by-side with Mokuba's Swordstalker. "So you really think it's a facade?" Shizuka asked, looking down to the cards on her duel disk as their siblings continued to argue about Card strategy and human anatomy.

"I know my brother, he's the most asexual  _renkon_ I've ever met." Mokuba replied crassly, an all-knowing grin on his face "I can't imagine him courting anyone. Anything he does, there's a strategic reason for it. There was something advantageous for him marrying your brother."

"I thought him keeping a relationship secret from me was bad enough," Shizuka would have looked like she was pouting if it wasn't for the cross edge in her tone "but lying to me completely… I don't know." She sighed heavily, "I knew it wasn't like him to hide something like an engagement from me."

"This was probably my brothers idea," Mokuba told her "if they told us that he had your brother as a hostage bride, it'd make Seto look like an asshole, and it would also take a jab at Jonouchi's masculine ego. So they needed a cover story. Too bad their bullshit is too obvious."

"Mhmm." Shizuka hummed in agreement, crossing her arms as the two elder siblings continued to squabble like the children in mens bodies that they truly were.

* * *

 _Overstimulated._ That's what Jonouchi was. He'd long since comes to terms with his tendency to experience sensory overload. Since he wasn't saving the world, or playing super intensive Duel Monsters matches anymore, he didn't experience it too much anymore. The closest he'd come to over-stimulation these days was when there was a breakout of FOS in the geriatric ward when the charge nurse was out, and all they had available was student CNAs.

"This duel disk is bullshit." He hissed to his spouse, who just ignored him. The beginnings of a migraine began, pressure building up from the side of his head where the headset was, and the pain radiating to the center of his forehead and sinuses. He wished that his younger self had come to the conclusion that he would hate this duel disk system, considering how much back then he'd stressed over not having it when Yugi and Kaiba did.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see his spouse, even with his straight face, still seemed very frustrated. It was clear from Kaiba's current card-set he'd swapped out a few cards of his to reflect Jounouchi's deck, which would have been surprisingly helpful, if it wasn't for the fact that Jounouchi wasn't using his gambling deck. He was using his current main deck, which was a Red Eyes theme deck, and had no luck-based and gambling style cards.

The pressure built up between his eyes, and at his temples. "Fuck it." He grumbled, near-growled to his spouse, and then ripped the headset off. He heard Kaiba say something probably dismissive and/or angry, but he didn't hear him as he focused on the instant relief he felt in his head as the red holographic shell of the advanced duel disk winked out in a scattering of red light. "Much better." He muttered under his breath as he looked down to his Battle City issue duel disk; trusty, and not prone to giving him headaches, and then glared head at the two younger siblings of him and his spouse who he swore to god had the biggest shit-eating look in their eyes.

"What are you doing?" Kaiba whispered harshly, glaring down at him.

"Dueling my way." Jounouchi whispered back with equal dissonance.

* * *

"You are too stubborn." Was the first thing Kaiba said to him as Shizuka and Mokuba, the losers of the double duel, packed up their duel disks.

"And your so-called advanced system is buggy." Jounouchi shot back, Kaiba looked as offended as if Jounouchi had insulted his late mother.

"My duel disk system is perfect across the board." Kaiba sized him up - which wasn't hard, given their two inch difference in height.

"Your duel disk system is the same for everyone," Jounouchi began, crossing his arms and hoping their siblings wouldn't hear them, and if they did they would just assume it was just a typical lovers spat "which would be fine if it was a manual system like the Battle City model, but it doesn't work when there's a neurological link, everyone's brain is structured differently."

"Do you have ADHD? The neural link has only ever had problems with-"

"So you're admitting your system isn't perfect?"

"The duel disk system  _is_ perfect, it's your defective brain that is obviously the problem."

Jounouch was near seething "How dare you-".

"Ahem." Mokuba loudly, and almost gutterly cleared his throat. The two older men looked over to see Mokuba and Shizuka standing right next to them, hand-in-hand, watching them with a strange mixture of amusement and uncertainty. Jounouchi and Kaiba had a rare moment of thinking the same thing, when they both wondered internally how long their younger siblings had been standing there.

Kaiba played the situation off calmly as he straightened up his shirt, and simply bent down to pick up the discarded headset. Jounouchi's face became saturated with red and he scratched the back of his head in a very animated way, chuckling nervously.

"Sorry uh about that." He told the younger couple, who's disposition did not change. "You know how frustrating your brother can be." He said, looking at Mokuba with a forced grin as he said that.

"Oh, I know exactly how my brother is." Mokuba replied, almost too passively, his stormy gray eyes twinkled in mischief, and the corners of his lips twitched upwards slightly. A foreboding feeling built up in the blonds stomach as the look on the black-haired mans face immediately brought flashback to the evil pre-Duelist Kingdom Mokuba who ran around with armed primary school children and had poisoned him in a twisted Russian Roulette style dinner. "I'm interested to see how much you do."

"You three head to the Kaibaland Resort, I have reservations set for the weekend." Kaiba announced suddenly, basically shoving two numbered keycards into Jounouchi's hand, he then turned a heel and headed out of the arena.

"Hey uh, h-honey, where are you heading too?" Jounouchi called softly after him, he heard his sister giggle, and the awkward embarrassment of the statement was well worth the slight falter in Kaiba's step as his shoulders shot up, likely because of the newfound pet name.

"I'm going to give the duel disk system to the on-site technical support department, they should be able to fix the headset." The CEO explained simply and continued on his way out.

Kaiba strode through a corridor, and when he neared the exit, he noticed a man standing there with his arms crossed. He must have been one of the spectators to the double duel; he had brown hair cut in a medium fade type haircut, long enough at the top to curl a little, and surpassed him slightly in height, maybe about 6'3.

He didn't even notice the man, until he spoke up "You're a really lucky guy, Kaiba." The statement made Kaiba pause, because the man spoke it in clear American-accented English. He looked over his shoulder, and glared slightly at the man, who simply looked back at him with amusement in his violet eyes, but the CEO didn't otherwise acknowledge him, and exited the arena.

* * *

"How about we go here?" Jounouchi pointed to a Cafe on the map as he, Shizuka and Mokuba sat on a shuttle that would eventually take them to the resort.

"The food there isn't that great, to be honest." Mokuba shrugged, on arm was over his fiancee who was resting on his shoulder.

"Didn't you and your brother design this place?"

"Yes, but some of the stalls and businesses on site aren't Kaiba Corp owned, they're contracted local businesses."

"Hmm," Jounouchi scanned the map a bit closer "how about this one?" He pointed to what appeared to be a full restaurant "It's closer to the resort."

"What do you think babe?" Mokuba looked down at Shizuka as he asked.

"I don't see why not." She shrugged, by the thickness in her tone Jounouchi could tell she was a little tired.

"We'll rest up a bit at the Resort and wait for  _Seto_ to return." Jounouchi said, specifically to her, trying not to look at his brother-in-law who might notice how unevenly he says his spouses first name.

"That gives us some time, my brother might hover around the tech department, and micromanage his poor programmers to make sure the headset is fixed."

"...Yeah..." Jounouchi answered, standing straight up when the shuttle came to a stop at the Resort, they all three thanked the driver politely and entered the resort.

Both of their rooms, according to the front desk when they read the room numbers on the keycards, were on the fifth floor on opposite ends of the hall. They rode the elevator in silence and when they got off, departed also with no words, as Shizuka was tired.

So was her older brother.

Jounouchi didn't bother to take in the interior of the room besides the fact there was only one bed, he emptied the contents of his pockets onto a nightstand on the right side of the bed, and horizontally draped himself over the bed. He shifted a little bit, enough to where he could bring his arm under his head to rest on, and closed his eyes to sleep.

* * *

He woke up to the sound of tapping, which entered his groggy brain slowly at first, but then more persistent as his consciousness lost the fight to stay asleep. Groaning slightly, he opened his eyes to find the room was now dimly lit to reflect on the dusky rays of sunset filtering through the mostly curtained window next to the bed. The blond looked over and saw Kaiba was sitting up on the bed, typing away at a laptop, explaining the tapping noise.

"Hey, Kaiba." Jounouchi yawned, his spouse didn't answer him; blinking the blurriness of sleep from his eyes, Jounouchi noticed he was now laying on the left side of the bed, now under the comforter, meaning Kaiba had moved him so he could take the right side. The nurse scotted up from under the covers to a sitting position and rolled his neck, grimacing a little at the ache in his cervical spine. "Gooood, my neck hurts." Jounouchi complained.

"Here." Kaiba said, and plopped a hand-held three pronged neck massager on his lap.

"You carry a neck massager on you?" Jounouchi inquired, blinking at him incredulously.

"I look down the majority of the time." Kaiba answered simply.

"Ah." Jounouchi replied, grinding the massager into the muscles of the back of his neck in a mix up up-down and circular motions "I guess that make sense since you work at a desk most of the day, and you've been doing that since you were in middle school when you were still developing - hell, you've probably got a really bad back huh."

"Not anymore than a hardcore PC gamer." Kaiba responded, Jounouchi couldn't catch a joking tone in his voice, but he was willing to bet the brunet was probably kidding him.

"Do you use one of those exercise ball chairs too?"

"You know I don't." It was true, as Jounouchi had hung around his office several times since they'd gotten married. Kaiba continued to type away, and hadn't once looked at his spouse.

Once the stiffness in his neck receded, Jounouchi looked back at him "We'll need to get ready, I told Shizuka and Mokuba we'd go to the restaurant when you got back."

"Which one?"

"Baiyu Restaurant."

Kaiba hummed in thought before closing his laptop "Alright," he answered, placing his laptop on the other nightstand and plugging it into it's charger "I'll text Mokuba."

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: Hey everyone, it's good to be back. No, I wasn't going to disappear for two years again. You see, part of my job involves occasional relocating, and I have recently relocated to Korea, where I will stay for a few months, I haven't been able to write because I had to cancel my wi-fi in the states a few weeks before I moved, and had to wait to settle into my new place and get the wi-fi set up. I'll be able to regularly update again.
> 
> Jounouchi and Kaiba aren't going to be at each others throat constantly, I'm not really a fan of that trope because in a lot of fics it's borderline toxic (nothing against the writers or how they write, I love a lot of the stories regardless), so I prefer writing them being in more casual settings together, hence the scene at the hotel where Jounouchi teases him a little over the neck massager.
> 
> Also, although I may have set up Mokuba and Shizuka to be trolling their elder brothers, they are for real no-shit together, it isn't a joke.
> 
> Please read and review.


	14. Double Date, Part 2

**Chapter 13: Double Date, Part 2**

"Do you want any, big brother?" Shizuka asked the blond nurse as she sipped a glass of plum liquor; he only shook his head. Being that they had grown up mostly separated, Shizuka was unaware of her brothers teetotalism, and he didn't feel like discussing it right now or any time soon. It wasn't that he believed his sister was unable to handle or understand his reasons, she was an adult now after all, but they hadn't seen each other in years, and he didn't want their reunion to be bogged down with the details of his checkered past.

 _Especially_ when it came to his aversion to alcohol. He didn't need to go near that particular dark corner of his mind again.

The Baiyu Restaurant was themed after plums, more specifically the period of plum ripening following the rainy season. As such a lot of the interior design of the restaurant was aesthetically rain-themed from the color scheme of the western-style table and chairs, to the framed paintings on the wall that depicted rain in naturalistic settings. The plum aspect was in the food; most if not all of the dishes contained plums in some form.

Each of them had ordered a meal set with Kaiba and Mokuba ordering Unagi onigiri, and chicken katsu respectively. Jounouchi and Shizuka ended up both ordering the curry over rice set. The two brothers talked to each other in hushed voices, probably over business judging by the random words Jounouchi would catch. Meanwhile Shizuka looked slightly to the side as she nursed her drink, her own brother sitting quietly as he wasn't sure what they were supposed to talk about when the Kaiba brothers were dead to the world in discussion.

"So..." Jounouchi turned to look down at his sister "How did you two end up together anyways?"

"We were in the same tutor group," Shizuka answered simply, "We had no idea we were at the same school so it was a surprise to see each other after many years, and one thing lead to another really."

"How is it working with… Him being all the way in Seoul?" He asked.

"We video chat every night, text each other constantly, and he visits me frequently in Kyoto since he has his own plane." Shozuka explained, a distinct sharpness appeared in her eyes as she said "I'm surprised you're curious, considering you must have been doing the same with your  _husband_ while you lived in the United States."

 _Shit._ Those two really were just looking straight through their lie. Well, Jounouchi wasn't one to give up. "I mean, of course, I know what it's like Shizuka," He waved off, his tone quickly picking up a jovial edge "Really, I'm just surprised about you and  _Mokuba_ being together, I had no idea you were so interested in a  _toshitas._ "

She looked back up at him with a hilarious expression between surprised disgust and a guffaw, and shoved her shoulder against his "He's only a year younger than me!" She whispered back harshly.

"I don't know about that I'm pretty sure he was eight years old when you were fifteen." He joked. Only then did Mokuba break his conversation with his brother to glare at him across from the table.

"Bastard, I was a late bloomer. I'm taller than  _you_ now." He huffed. Despite his height, age, and intelligence, right now he really was showing his roots as Kaiba's bratty little brother.

"Don't get cranky on me," Jounouchi continued to tease, the sharper gaze from the younger man made him add "if you don't behave you might not get dessert."

Mokuba exhaled sharply through his nose, but then rolled his eyes until they settled on his sibling. "Are you going to let your husband speak to me like that big brother?"

"Are you going to continue to speak to your older brother-in-law so disrespectfully?" Kaiba reminded him in a flat tone; Jounouchi and Shizuka looked to each other because while they were pretty sure Kaiba had just cracked a joke, the oxymoron of his monotone made it extremely difficult to tell.

"Urgh." Mokuba mumbled, then quietly thanked the server as each of them were given their meal sets.

They began eating in silence until Shizuka suddenly spoke up "So what made you two decide to date?" She asked, Jounouchi choked a little on a mouthful of rice and looked up at Kaiba who still had a neutral expression as he slowly drank his glass of ume tea.

"Well… it's a funny story actually..." Jounouchi began slowly as he racked his brain for an excuse, as soon as an idea came he fired off "When I went to the United States for nursing school, I didn't have Honda to fix my Duel Disk right? So originally I looked at the users manual, but the manual didn't help so I called the help desk instead, but the help desk kept leaving me on hold for like an hour at a time, and when someone finally answered they just kept transferring my call to a supervisor, and then I kept racking up foreign call charges on my phone bill.

"So one day I angrily called K- Seto instead, and he left the call open but just ignored me while I was ranting over the phone and after like half an hour of this he gets mad and tells me he's coming over to fix it, right? And I ask how the hell are you going to fix it, I'm in the USA. And he hangs up and like the next morning there's an angry knocking on my door. And it's like, four in the morning or something so I'm wondering who the hell is bothering me at four in the morning. I open the door and it's him, he looks frustrated, I'm just staring at him in silence because I didn't think he was actually going to come over.

"He demands to see my duel disk and invites himself inside and starts fixing it. It's awkward to just have someone sitting there in your apartment fixing your duel disk for you and we start talking. By the time he's done he still has jetlag so I offered to let him stay with me over the weekend while he gets ready to fly off again, and I don't expect him to say yes because it's a shitty college town apartment but he says yes and we hang out a little with him pretending to hate it.

"One thing lead to another and we just started talking, and kept talking even after we left, and decided to start dating long-distance after like… two, three months of chatting? And then some time passes and we get engaged, and then when he found the right amount to bribe the japanese government with, we got married in Japan shortly after getting married in the United States."

Jounouchi sharply took in a breath after he finished, and took a long drink of his ume-infused water.

"..." Kaiba said nothing as he processed Jounouchi's on-the-fly, rapid fire story.

"...Huh..." Mokuba replied, his face was showing the amount of surprise his own brother was probably feeling inside. "That's… interesting." He then turned to Kaiba "Who popped the question?"

"Me." Kaiba answered without missing a beat; because as he and his husband both knew, this sham marriage was his idea. He finished the last onigiri of his meal set.

"I still don't see why you kept it a secret from me." Shizuka said quietly, but harshly, looking slightly to the side as she pressed the call button to summon their server.

"Shizuka..." He said quietly back, but the back of her head that she presented him told him she wasn't in the mood to hear his excuses, and the fact that his excuses would also be lies just made him feel more guilty.

"I'm disappointed they don't serve chocolate desserts." Mokuba sighed after the server took their dessert orders and left.

"The KitKat Umeshu Tsuru-ume you've been drinking like water this meal wasn't enough for you?" Kaiba chided as he looked at the fruit and white chocolate flavored liquor his brother had been drinking.

"No." Mokuba answered simply, taking a big sip as if to prove his immature point. He really wasn't the evil genius Jounouchi had been pegging him for this entire visit. "Hey big brother, after this we should go to a bar."

"Maybe another time, this is a family visit." Kaiba answered.

"We're all old enough to drink." Mokuba pointed out.

"Katsuya doesn't drink." Kaiba said, and Jounouchi stiffened as his sister looked at him in surprise.

"Why didn't you say so?" The redheaded coder asked.

"It didn't come up." Jounouchi replied quickly, and distracted himself with another long drink of water.

His sister was so young when their parents divorced that she never really knew what their father was really like. For the first few years, their father was granted limited supervised visits with her. The same with Jounouchi and their mother, but she never took those visits. Those visits would be the few times he would sober up and act like a pleasant, dutiful father. Once she left however, the facade was up.

"You don't refrain from drinking because you're some religious nut, right?" Shizuka asked. Jonouchi swore he could smell the pungent aroma of anise characteristic of absinthe, but he knew it was all in his head and he had to change the subject fast.

"I'm in a legally binding, homosexual marriage." He said just loudly enough to get some dirty looks from other tables, and he had the sense to turn the volume of his voice down. "If God didn't already disaprove of me for what I did when I was young and dumb, he definitely doesn't approve of me now."

"I'm surprised you consider the Christian God first," Mokuba observed "after all of stuff with the Egyptian Gods and the afterlife."

Jounouchi put his water down - he'd already drunken like four of those glasses. "Honestly, I don't even know what to really believe, I haven't thought too hard about it."

Of course he believed in the Egyptian Gods after all that happened with Yugi, the Pharaoh, Bakura and the god cards. However, he didn't actively worship them because after seeing all that the 15-year-old Pharaoh went through, and all that happened to him and his friends who got caught in the crossfire of 'destiny' also at the ages of 16-18, he'd long since come to the conclusion that every single diety ever was a massive cunt.

"Didn't you go into the Afterlife?" Shizuka turned to Kaiba.

"I did." Kaiba confirmed.

"How did you… come back?" She asked. That question did make Jounouchi a little curious himself, as he hadn't even thought of asking.

"I had a recall program in my dueling system." Kaiba explained cooly "Once a duel was initiated, a program would launch to pull me back to the point I originated from, but would stay pending until the duel was complete. It was only set to last for one duel."

"Have you ever thought of sharing that technology or further researching it? Time travel has been a big ambition of the scientific community for years." She continued to probe; Jounouchi himself thought about it; it was true, Kaiba was the first and only person to figure out time travel and travel into the realm of the dead, and yet... he used it for a duel.

"Because I know humanity would use it for war, or politics. After I'd completed my mission, I destroyed everything and anything that had to do with that project." Kaiba explained.

"I'll be right back." Jounouchi said, excusing himself to the bathroom as the excessive liquid consumption caught up to him.

The bathroom was also mostly traditional in design and decor, the only 'plum' aspect seemed to be in the incense that was currently burning.

As he was washing his hands after finishing his business, Kaiba came in. "That was an interesting story you came up with." He stated.

Jounouchi dried his hands with a hand towel "I don't know if you really mean that  _dearest_ or if you're trying to be cute."

"Cute isn't a word for what I' trying to be." Kaiba deadpanned.

"Well that's what you're being." Jounouchi teased.

"Are you flirting?"

"Are you trying to have a conversation or take a leak because I don't like having conversations with people on the john."

"The what?"

"The  _toilet_ , sorry."

Kaiba cleared his throat and walked over closer to his spouse "They are onto us." Kaiba stated blunty. Jounouchi didn't need him to elaborate to know what he meant.

"Yes," he sighed in agreement "they know us too well for our own good. I feel so guilty lying to my sister."

"My brother has always prided himself in knowing me better than I grave him credit for, but I don't want him thinking he has the upper hand."

"An upper hand? Like in catching us in our lie?"

"Yes."

Jounouchi stared at him incredulously, before blinking slowly. "Don't you… feel even a little guilty? For lying to him."

"Mokuba is an adult."

"He is still your brother."

"My brother of all people should know that if I decided to do something like this - get married to another man out of the blue in a country where such a marriage isn't even legal, that I would have a good reason for it. He should trust my judgement."

"How can you expect someone to trust you when you're so brazenly lying?"

"How can you be so judgmental of my relationship with my brother when you barely even know your sister?"

Their argument had brought them inching closer together so their voices wouldn't raise high enough for anyone outside of the bathroom would hear them. Jounouchi had his back turned to the sink while Kaiba was standing right in front of him basically hovering over him.

When Jounouchi heard someone messing with the door he acted om reflex - putting his hands on Kaiba's waist and yanking the CEO closer to him to make it look like they were embracing.

And his action was the right one, as the person who came in was Mokuba.

Jounouchi looked over at the younger man with an exasperated expression he wasn't faking. He was almost reminded of the incident with Ito a few weeks back. "It… Isn't what it looks like?" He offered. He technically wasn't lying.

Mokuba blinked hard for a moment. "I didn't think you were the type to be into screwing in a public bathroom, big brother." He said directly to his older brother, whose face remained stoic.

"Get out." Kaiba responded. He was a bit stiff in his spouses 'embrace' but not anymore than would be usual for him.

"I have to take a piss." Mokuba returned, walking over to the urinal. "You two should really save it for the hotel room, you know." Jounouchi let go of Kaiba's waist and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, sliding out from under Kaiba.

"I'm going back to my sister before she thinks we ditched her." He said to Kaiba, and to make it appear more genuine in front of Mokuba, he gently grabbed the collar of Kaiba's shirt and dragged his head down, and very quickly kissed his cheek, which seemed to surprise the taller man as the tips of his ears quickly flushed red.

Jounouchi briskly ducked out of the restroom. ' _His skin's actually pretty warm…'_  he thought, amused, then quickly shook his head to clear the intrusive thoughts; he wasn't some love struck schoolboy.

Shizuka was still waiting, but she looked slightly annoyed to have been left alone. "You sure took your time." She scolded gently as her older brother sat back down.

"I had to take a dump." He said, loud enough to again get glares from the other patrons, and cause his younger sibling to scrunch up her nose at him.

"Gross." She fake-whined; he grinned at her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Also, I didn't wash my hands." He added, as expected she tried to jerk away from him, but he tightened his arm over her preventing escape.

"You're disgusting." She said, bumping her shoulder hard against his chest, pouting.

"Relaxxx, relax." He said, pecking the top of her head "I'm just joking. I'm a nurse you know, I'd never skip out on washing my hands."

"You're still gross." She said, much calmer now, but still not looking at him so she could focus on the plum wine she ordered.

"You know..." He started after a few moments of silence, hoping they could catch a quick sibling moment before the brothers returned "You turned out really well… I'm proud of you, you know."

Shizuka stiffened a little, and looked up at him - Jounouchi was taken aback, because the way she was looking at him now… immediately brought him back to the look in her eyes back to when she'd first regained her vision. So unsure of the world around her, and blindly trusting. "Big brother..." She began.

' _Oh shit._ ' Jounouchi thought, she was using a voice that he could never lie to.

"Do you really love him, Katsuya?" She asked, straight to the point "I know I didn't tell you about me and Mokuba before… But I love him, I really do."

She was being  _sincere._

Was it really too much to ask of him to be sincere too?

He looked away "I-"

He stopped himself when Shizuka put a hand on his cheek and gently forced him to look back at her. Right in the eyes.

"Katsuya." Her voice was still soft, but it was firm. "Do you love him?"

He knew the look in his own eyes were betraying him. He put his hand over hers to remove him his cheek and clasp it between both of his hands strongly. "I'm trying really hard." He answered vaguely, and he probably sounded really choked up; but he knew that she understood him, at least partially.

"I see..." She replied. He let go of her hand and straightened up when he saw the Kaiba brothers returned.

"Are you ready to go?" Mokuba asked Shizuka as he sat back down, kissing her cheek.

"Yeah..." She replied, seeming distant. Mokuba frowned but he didn't question her.

"What about you?" Kaiba asked, Jounouchi simply nodded and stood up.

After they paid, the two couples left as a group, but while the two brothers were talking to each other, Jounouchi and Shizuka were silent.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Believe it or not the real reason this chapter took so long is because I was really unsure about writing a dinner scene. You see a couple chapters back I put in Mokuba's name in Kanji as a joke, and I did so wrong it was like half of the reviews I got. I mean, it's on me because I was wrong but I really hate being so ignorant, and I don't know much about how Japanese restaurants and meal serving goes so yeahhhh. I tried.
> 
> I think I had the most fun in this chapter writing the scene where Jounouchi was making up a story on the fly how he and Kaiba got together. Maybe in an alternative fanfiction universe, that really is how they got together lol. If you can't tell, Jounouchi has some nervous/anxious habits, his being that he drinks a lot of water or really any drink when he's stressed, also stuff like tapping his fingers, or clicking his pen when in uniform..
> 
> Unagi onigiri is rice ball with eel. I'm not sure if the eel is served inside of the riceball or on top of the riceball because of conflicting sources, let's say for simplicity it is the riceball filling, and the rice ball is grilled and brushed with plum vinegar since it's a plum restaurant. Kaiba's favorite meal is filet mignon with Foie gras sauce which tells me two things - not only is Kaiba a big meat eater but he's also got expensive tastes. The eel is the expensive part because the eel traditionally eaten is actually endangered due to overfishing, and because it's incredibly difficult to farm.


	15. Kilig

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to sky-kaijou who has not only been following this story since I first started writing it like... three years ago, but has become the beta reader because I'm to impatient to actually read stuff over before posting it.

Chapter 14: Kilig

"You're quiet tonight." Kaiba commented snidely as he sat at his desk; the lights in his office were on this time, as he was going through paper documents rather than electronic ones. He was of course referring to his spouse, who was lying on the couch he usually sat at when he was waiting for him to get done working.

Katsuya didn't answer; he was lying on his side facing the couch back; he hadn't even bothered to change into regular clothes after his shift at the hospital and was just wearing his against-the-Kaiba-Corp-regulation scrub set.

It has been about a week since their family day with their siblings, and Katsuya had been acting off ever since. He still hadn't returned to the mansion, opting to instead continue to stay at the safehouse near Domino High. Kaiba didn't know why he was more comfortable there, but if he had to guess it was likely because a small house was much less intimidating than a huge mansion for someone who'd never lived outside of an apartment complex. After all, that was how he had felt when he and Mokuba were children after being adopted by Gozaburo.

Katsuya had before the family event seemingly been trying to improve their relationship - doing things like opening up emotionally and visiting him more. Lately, however, he wasn't speaking to him and was spacing out a lot; Kaiba had only left him alone with his sister for less than five minutes but apparently that was enough to make Katsuya withdraw into himself.

Kaiba was just going to let him deal with it himself, but clearly he wasn't getting over it on his own. The brunet neatly stacked the documents he was working on before looking across the room to his husband "We're taking a walk." He wasn't asking. Katsuya didn't answer "I know you aren't asleep, come walk with me in the garden." Kaiba said as he got up and shoved a wool trench coat over his suit, not bothering to button it.

Katsuya sighed audibly before he slowly rose up into a seated position, and even slower got onto his feet. He shuffled over to the CEO, but wasn't looking him in the eye, rather his gaze was cast downward at the ground.

Admittedly hesitant at first, Kaiba hooked his arm with the others'; he observed so far that the other man responded the most to physical gestures rather than verbal instructions. Katsuya seemed surprised, but relaxed quickly as expected, allowing the CEO to lead him out of the building to the back garden of Kaiba Corp.

There weren't any lamps in the back garden, but the night sky was clear and the white stones of the garden reflected off the moonlight and illuminated the area. Kaiba led him down the path a few meters before he began speaking "What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing." Katsuya dismissed.

"We both know that's not true." Kaiba replied, tightening his arm with Katsuya to ensure he couldn't jerk away impulsively "Ever since we saw our siblings you haven't been yourself."

"Don't talk about me like you know who I am." Katsuya replied flatly, refusing to look at him.

"I don't have to know you on a deep level to know you're not acting how you usually act." Kaiba said "I have pattern recognition."

"Do you want an award?"

"Do you want to stop deflecting and talk to me straight like an adult?"

Katsuya fell silent; Kaiba could see he was gnawing on his bottom lip. The CRNA had a lot of nervous habits that were easy to not notice, but Kaiba was nothing if not observant.

Being strict wasn't going to work with him. Perhaps a more compassionate approach was in order. "Tell me what's wrong." He softened the tone of his voice this time, and stopped in his tracks so he could look at him "Please."

The use of such a seldom used word from him seemed to work. Katsuya drew in a deep breath and slowly released it before finally saying "I'm sorry."

Kaiba quirked a brow "About what?"

"I...I..." Katsuya's breathing became deeper between words "... C-Couldn't lie..."

"About what?" He asked, letting go of his husbands arm so he could instead wrap it around his waist in a comforting way, which again garnered the reaction he wanted.

"To Shizuka..."

It clicked.

He wanted to be mad, but if he lashed out at his spouse now it would set them back to where they were in the beginning; Katsuya openly hating him to his face, and Kaiba only dismissing him. "About our marriage?" He tried to keep an annoyed edge out of his tone.

"Not outright." Katsuya admitted, sounder more collected now "God, I'm such a shitty coward. I couldn't lie to my sister but I couldn't be honest either."

Was he really more upset about being wishy-washy with his sister over admitting the secret of their marriage?

At least he was consistent.

Kaiba tightened his mouth into a tight line as Katsuya continued to ramble about how guilty he felt and what a bad brother he was. "Your sister will realize you have your reasons." He finally offered; comforting anyone wasn't his strong suit.

"I couldn't even tell her though."

"She'll be upset for now… but she'll come around."

"You really think so?" Katsuya looked up at him. Meeting his eyes, Kaiba was surprised how close to gold the colour of his eyes were even in the ghostly light of the moon. It distracted him, but only momentarily.

"If she really loves you, she'll understand." Kaiba continued; and he meant it. Him and his brother may be at odds at times because of their conflicting egos; but he knew at the end of the day, he and Mokuba would always be there for each other. Kaiba loved his little brother, and he loved him back with equal strength and vigor no matter their age and distance.

"Thanks Kaiba..." Katsuya mumbled, and turned against him to rest the side of his head against his shoulder and wrapped his arms around his waist in a hug. It didn't necessarily catch Kaiba by surprise, but it was still… odd, because he wasn't used to these gestures from anyone who wasn't Mokuba, and the last time Katsuya had hugged him was when he had been upset after their fight a few weeks back. Still, he was on one of his husband's rare good graces and he wasn't going to set him off again. Begrudgingly, he slowly wrapped his arms over Katsuya in return.

This seemed to placate the blond, enough to make him not only tighten his end of the hug, but rest his head against his chest instead of his shoulder "You feel cold." Katsuya muttered.

Strange he should stay that, because his entire torso felt warm.

\---

Although Kaiba wanted to go back to the mansion, Katsuya wanted to go back to the safehouse; he didn't bother to argue because of all of the effort he had put into calming him down in the first place.

Besides, he could just drive back to the mansion when he dropped him off.

However, Katsuya insisted he stay over so they could 'hang out'. He figured this was the blonds attempts at closeness, which was good enough for Kaiba because at least he wasn't the only one putting some effort into their tumultuous and loveless marriage.

Katsuya had all but dragged him to the couch and turned on the TV. They sat together, but there was a gap between them now, because they both still felt awkward in their shared presence. They were watching some Chinese drama that was an adaptation of some Korean webcomic, thankfully subtitled in Japanese. Kaiba could in fact understand spoken Mandarin for business reasons, but he still had a hard time if he wasn't interacting directly with the speaker.

The long work hours of the day caught up to him not long after he sat down, and his vision became blurry with his heavy eyelids that he could just barely keep open. He slumped where he sat; he should really get up and drive home… but he was really tired, and fatigue was really persistent.

"You could stay over if you want." He heard Katsuya say.

He hummed in response, his eyes were closed "I own this place..." He replied, trying to sound stiff but he was too tired. The other man chuckled; the sound was distant now, and so was the fluttery feeling in his chest.

\---

The loud alarm on his phone went off at six in the morning as it always did. His eyes snapped open and his heart raced momentarily as he struggled to grab his phone from his pocket and turn the annoying alarm off. Groaning quietly from the stiffness in his back, and his arm currently being asleep, Kaiba sat up and looked around; he was still in the safehouse. The hallway light was on and he could hear the sound of a shower running, meaning Katsuya was awake.

He had slept in his work clothes, which wasn't new but it was still uncomfortable, especially with the way his belt bit into his hips at the sides. However, he saw that his peacoat was on a nearby coat rack, he didn't remember taking it off so it was probably Katsuya he took it off him. He was also most likely the one who put the pillow under his head and the blanket over him.

He pulled the blanket off - and saw it had a cord on it that was plugged into the wall. An electric blanket, which explained why he was so warm. He reached over to the temperature control on the cord, it was currently set to three, and shut it off.

He should have a few changes of work clothes here. Perhaps a little outdated from years of abandonment, but sufficient for his workday. He went into the master bedroom portion of the house that Katsuya had essentially taken over and rummaged through the closet, grabbing out a light blue button shirt and black slacks, which he knew his husband couldn't wear because of their differences in size.

He had placed the articles down on the desk and was already fully cooled down when he heard the door opening; he turned his head to see Katsuya walking in the room, he was barefoot and shirtless, wearing a pair of black scrub bottoms, and actively drying his hair with a towel as he walked in. "Good morning." He greeted flatly, wondering why his skin suddenly felt warm again.

"Morning." Katsuya greeted in return, tossing the towel onto the bed and throwing on a long-sleeved beige shirt. "How'd you sleep?"

"I wish I didn't forget my neck massager in my desk." Kaiba replied insipidly, cracking his neck in demonstration.

"You should really consider an ergonomic chair." Katsuya said as he sat on the edge of the bed, clipping his hospital badge and pens onto his scrub top.

"Those yoga ball chairs? You must be joking." He scoffed.

"Not a bad idea," Katsuya chuckled, tucking his beige shirt in before pulling his scrub top over it "I meant a good-quality, adjustable chair, and adjust it for your posture. Your desk chair looks like it came from the seventies."

"Anesthesia is your specialization, not physical therapy."

"Every nurse has to go through advanced anatomy and physiology; trust me, you want a different chair. I don't think whoever produced that chair had anyone over 170 centimeters in mind."

"Whatever," Kaiba dismissed, grabbing a different towel and walked to the bathroom. He locked the door and stripped down, blindly flicking the water tap up. He regretted not checking the temperature tap before he entered the shower; a loud hiss broke from him the second he ducked under the water spray that was so hot it was caustic. "God damn it," He almost growled and slammed his hand onto the cold tap "why does he need the water at a near boil?" He asked himself.

Maybe that was why Katsuya was always warm to the touch.

Wait, what was he thinking?

He was going deep in rapid thought throughout his shower; Kaiba'd known since he was thirteen he was gay, but he never… Thought about guys a lot. Or really at all. He knew what conventionally attractive was, but he never really… cared? He knew other people in the same age group were always going on about who was hot or sexy, but he never really understood it. If anything it just confounded him that people were so quick to drop their pants for anything easy on the eyes.

Soon after they met, Kaiba knew that Katsuya was conventionally attractive, but he still didn't care. He was just some loudmouth deadbeat riding Yugi's coat tails. Over their time going through the motions of the Pharaohs adventures, there was only one thing about Katsuya he found interesting, and it wasn't his appearance or sexual appeal; it was his spirit. He had nothing, but he was strong. Yes, he was in Yugi's shadow, and a lot of what he learned came from Yugi and the Pharaoh, but he started from the bottom and chose to make himself stronger through trial and error.

That was something even Yugi couldn't claim; Yugi was always a talented duelist, and even if he wasn't he was boosted by being possessed by the literal King of Games duel spirit. Yugi may have been powerful, but Katsuya made himself powerful.

That was then, though. They split ways after they graduated High School. And Kaiba barely even thought about him through the years, but then they got married at Kaiba's behest, to get other businessmen to leave him alone. He didn't think much of him even during the first several months they were married, other than how annoying his avoidance of him was.

Lately however… he was thinking of Katsuya more.

It was strange, he should have thought his husband was weak after witnessing his shameless display of emotions, time and time again but… weakness never once crossed his mind. If anything, he found it… commendable he was willing to come clean to him about needed boundaries in their relationship in order to maintain their marriage, because he wasn't expecting that from him. He was expecting Katsuya to spend their entire marriage sulking about it and quietly hating him from the shadows, never seeing the marriage as more than it was intended to be, and maybe even less.

The more he thought about Katsuya, the more appealing he seemed to be. Kaiba never cared too much about appearance besides being able to distinguish between what was ugly and what wasn't. Lately, as they spent more time together with their proverbial hair down and had non-antagonistic interactions with each other, Katsuya became more… engaging. Not just in appearance but also in personality; he was so easy to disregard before but now he wasn't.

He was a lot more intelligent than Kaiba initially gave him credit for. He knew he had to be at least somewhat intelligent if he was a nurse anaesthetist, but he was actually really smart. Maybe Kaiba didn't see this when they were younger because back then, Katsuya wasn't applying himself academically, at least for rigorous Japanese Educational standards. His time in America away from his criminal past, away from his dysfunctional family and the demanding dueling scene, he'd blossomed intellectually into someone Kaiba barely even recognized.

And he wasn't even arrogant about it. He was still so casual to everyone. He never talked down to anyone, and he talked to his husband like they were on the same level, like Kaiba was just a regular person and not one of the richest and most intelligent men in Japan; that in itself should have infuriated him, it definitely did when they were younger, but now… now…

Humbling wasn't the right word; Kaiba knew he was at the top of the world, and no one could ground him from up there.

It was, however, strangely alluring.

There were two raps at the door; not knocking, but the type of tapping a medical person would make before entering a patient's room, not upsettingly loud but enough to bring him out of his thoughts. "Hurry up," Katsuya said from the other side of the bathroom "I made breakfast, it'll get cold." He heard his footsteps fade away.

Kaiba ended his shower off with a quick cold rinse - but even after about half a minute under cold spray, he was still felt oddly warm.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Kilig is a Tagalog word (National language of the Philippines) with no English equivalent, it basically refers to the feeling you get when you see your crush.
> 
> Another chapter in Kaiba's perspective! You may notice that the way Kaiba refers to Jounouchi differs from how Jounouchi refers to him; Jounouchi has only recently come to terms with Kaiba being his spouse, while Kaiba has no problem referring to Jounouchi as his husband. This isn't necessarily because Kaiba's more emotionally invested in their relationship at this point, just that he accepts it.
> 
> Speaking of emotional investment, Kaiba's actions here may seem dishonest because he did everything just so their relationship "wouldn't be set back" but he is trying. Remember, his emotional intelligence is slow on the uptake. That, and you can see he at this point does at least like Katsuya, he always had a least a little admiration for him that he would never admit to, because he knows for a fact Jounouchi is strong. After all, Kazuki Takahashi himself said that Kaiba and Yugi were weak compared to Jounouchi.
> 
> Kaiba explains himself as gay, but for the sake of this story he is actually Demisexual Homoromantic. He will only experience sexual attraction with someone he has an emotional bond with, and is romantically attracted to other men only. Kaiba doesn't know his exact sexuality because he doesn't care too much about social issues, and instead just put's himself under the generalization of 'gay'.
> 
> The Chinese drama mentioned is 'Lookism', based on a Korean Webcomic of the same name that I am currently hyperfixated on.


	16. Stonewalled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh.
> 
> Title: Endearment and Enmity
> 
> Rating: T-M depending on chapter, M overall
> 
> Summary: When you're literally married to the person you despise.
> 
> Warnings: Homosexual relationships, vulgar words and adult situations.
> 
> Author's Note: I don't know why I wrote this.

Chapter 15: Stonewalled

"How are you already doing that much weight?"

"I'm just rusty, geeze, it's not like I shriveled up and became decrepit you know." Jounouchi reminded Ryuzaki as he finished his tenth rep, setting the bench press back down. He slid out from under the bar and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. Since he'd gotten back to Domino all he'd been doing is jogging, but after Ryuzaki suggested he join the gym he was going to he couldn't really refuse. He hadn't done any strength training in almost a year. Most of his strength itself was still there, but his muscular endurance was definitely lacking.

"What do you want to do next?" He asked Ryuzaki as the other man reset the weights of the bench.

The brunet hummed in thought "How are you at boxing?"

"Ah- you do boxing?"

"Me and Haga were assaulted shortly before we joined Dartz. I started taking self defense soon after all of that Orichalcos nonsense." He explained, and a stab of guilt panged in Jounouchi's chest; he knew Ryzaki and Haga had a fall from grace when their popularity dropped, but he didn't think they'd get physically attacked. "Anyways, there's a boxing ring, would you mind some light sparring - and I mean light."

"Sure thing." Jounouchi agreed "I know some basics on boxing, but only simple stuff like jabs and hooks." When he ran with gangs when he was a teen, he didn't have formal training; he was street fighter who used instinct and dirty tactics to win fights. Now, he actually did know a fighting style that he had been formally trained on when he lived in the states, but he wasn't going to use it against Ryuzaki in a light sparring match.

Seeing the boxing ring was empty for now, they quickly donned some gloves and headgear, Jounouchi grabbing a shield so Ryuzaki could practice on him.

"I hope you're reflexes aren't also rusty." Ryuzaki said, slightly teasing.

"I'm no pushover." Jounouchi explained with a grin, blocking a sudden right hook and backing up slightly with each blow from the shorter man. He was going to let Ryuzaki get the practice he needed… but when he wasn't going to let him get all of them easily.

After a few jabs and kicks, Jounouchi could see the former duelist was sufficiently warmed up and began to actively evade his hits. "You're going to have a be a little faster, mighty mouse." Jounouchi jeered, but in a good-natured way. Ryuzaki grinned at the challenge and punched his gloves together before lunging at him again.

Being so engrossed in their practice session, they didn't see a tall man sitting on a bench nearby at the freeweight portion of the gym, who wasn't even using the weights, instead he was watching them with a curious look in his violet eyes.

\---

"You're pretty good." Jounouchi told his friend as they left the boxing ring and walked back to the racks to deposit the protective gear, first wiping them down with the gyms disinfectant wipes.

"You're too much for me." Ryuzaki muttered.

"Hey hey hey don't be hard on yourself; I've always been a brawler. If I had just jumped you or something, I wouldn't stand a chance." Jounouchi reminded him; one of the biggest weaknesses of any brawler was their tendency to underestimate their opponents. Gang fights used a lot of dirty tricks including ambushing, and a lot of the time they didn't expect their victim to fight back, at least not with technique like Ryuzaki could with his trained self-defense. A combination of his low center of gravity and solid footwork, he was extremely hard to actually knock off of his feet.

They two put their gym towels behind their necks and walked towards the locker room, passing by the free weight section.

"Hey - what's that note say?" Ryuzaki said, noticing a loose leaf white paper on the empty bench. Curious, Jounouchi picked it up and it was obvious why it had caught his friends attention - it had an English message on it. "Well?"

"It says 'Nice fight'." Jounouchi explained, confused. Why would someone leave a note like this? Or at all?

"Weird..." Ryuzaki commented as the blond crumpled up the paper and threw it away along with the disinfectant wipes.

"Whatever. Same time Thursday?" Jounouchi inquired. Making time for the gym was going to be busy since he typically didn't do much at the end of his work days, but he already had Monday, Wednesday and Friday as his jogging days.

"Sure." Ryuzaki confirmed as they walked into the men's locker room.

The nurse and the primary school teacher parted ways after the gym - Ryuzaki heading towards the subway, and Jounouchi instead taking his (Kaiba's) car. However, the gym had no parking of its own so he was actually parked about a block away.

Jounouchi still had his earbuds in and was carrying his gym bag under his arm, he didn't notice he was being trailed after.

As he was putting his gym bag in the back seat of his car, he grabbed his keys from inside of the bag and packed away his earbuds.

"Joey?" He heard behind him in a clearly American voice.

His entire body simultaneously went stiff but sprang into action - with his keys between his fingers in a makeshift weapon he whirled around and pointed them towards the stranger.

...Who wasn't a stranger at all.

"...Stoney?" Jounouchi drawled out slowly in shock; the other man was standing a good two meters away, and although Jounouchi had to look up a bit to see him he'd recognize him anywhere; caucasian, standing tall at 6'3, brown hair in a medium fade that curled slightly at the tips, eyes as violet as wisteria, and a lopsided grin that reflected the amused glint in his eyes.

Staff Sergeant Jackson Anthony Stonewall. A 25-year-old American soldier.

"Yeah," Stoney confirmed, speaking American English "funny to see you again, Joey."

\---

"Why the hell are you here?" Jounouchi asked in a harsh whisper in English. Currently Stoney and himself were seated in a mostly vacant Cafe, Jounouchi had a glass of bubble tea while the American had a ceramic mug of plain black coffee.

"What a nice greeting. Are all of the Japs as straightforward as you?" Stony asked, amused, as he blew on the steaming liquid, making Jounouchi glare at him.

"You're in the wrong place to be racist, Jackson." Jounouchi hissed at the other man's lack of tact.

Stoney simply shrugged "Anyways - I'm stationed in Okinawa." He explained.

"Then why are you in Domino?" He demanded, trying to keep his voice as low as possible, he wasn't going to assume they were the only two here who could speak English.

"I'm taking leave," Stony explained "the way you described Domino and Kaibaland, I figured it was worth visiting… And speaking of Kaiba-"

"Oh, jesus." Jounouchi swore under his breath, he knew this was inevitable.

"Since when were you a gold-digger?"

If they were in a more private setting, Jounouchi would have definitely laid out his shit at the audacity. He narrowed his eyes "I'm no gold-digger." He stated firmly.

"Yeah right… I can't read the Japanese tabloids, but I've heard things here and there and pieced it together. You married Seto Kaiba a little less than a year ago." The brunet crossed his arms as the amused look on his face instantly vanished.

"What about it? I told you we went to high school together." Jounouchi reminded him, but he knew his deflection was only delaying the inevitable

"But how could you have been dating Kaiba for three years before you were married when we were dating eight months before that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, but awkward.
> 
> Yes! Introducing Jackson Anthony "Stoney" Stonewall. If you remember from a few chapters back, this is the violet-eyed brunet who told Kaiba he was a lucky guy after the tag team duel against Mokuba and Shizuka.
> 
> Stoney's name is derived from Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, who like Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler (who was seemingly where Jounouchi's English name was derived from )was a confederate general. It's important to note that most active duty enlisted American soldiers usually go exclusively by their last name instead of their first name, even with friends who aren't in the military. 
> 
> Let's just say that while he was in nursing school, Jounouchi was studying anatomy and physiology in more than one way.


	17. United States v. Windsor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: I SAW I'VE BEEN SPELLING 'JONOUCHI' AS 'JOUNOUCHI' FOR THE PAST FEW CHAPTERS, I'LL CORRECT IT FROM HERE ON.

_ -Back in the Past- _

_"You've deployed to Iraq twice, why are you being such a pussy?"_

_"Do not antagonize my patient, sergeant." Katsuya Jonouchi, RN, warned the female non-commissioned officer sitting nearby. He turned back to the nervous female soldier sitting at the patient's bed, their uniform blouse was off leaving them in their coyote undershirt._

_The female soldier was staring at the anthrax vaccine syringe in his hand and was backing up each time he came near her._

_"You have complete sleeve tattoos on both arms! Why are you scared of this needle?" The NCO complained to the soldier, her arms crossed, irate._

_"Now sergeant, a fear of needles is completely natural and common, it's nothing to be surprised about, and again, shaming is not helping my patient." Jonouchi put a bit more emphasis in his tone as he looked back at the sergeant, who looked away slightly._

_"Now, Ward," he addressed his patient in his 'patient care' tone "I'm just going to swab your arm with an alcohol wipe first okay?" Nevermind that he already did that, but Ward had already defensively grabbed her own deltoid, so the injection site wasn't sterile anymore._

_Ward nodded and presented her arm again; he swabbed it with the alcohol wipe and fanned it dry with his hand before wide-pinching the deltoid to make the muscles protrude. Then quickly stuck her with the needle, making the soldier hiss audibly, and emptied the contents of the syringe into the muscle as quickly as possible. Usually he counted down from three when giving patients shots, but he didn't do that with patients who had a phobia of needles, as not to increase their anxiety. With a gloved thumb, he massaged the shot site to work the vaccine into the underlying muscle._

_"There, now you know it's going to start burning after about ten seconds," he said, removing his thumb and seeing that she wasn't even bleeding there; a grimace appeared on Ward's face to indicate exactly what he said was happening "I know you've gotten this injection before, but I'm still going to tell you that for the next 24 hours your arm is going to be sore, so try to not do a lot of weight lifting. You're not even bleeding - but do you want a bandaid anyways?"_

_"No thanks, but thank you nurse." Ward politely answered and grabbed her camouflage blouse, quickly zipping and velcroing it up. Jonouchi disposed of the syringe into the needle into the sharps container and degloved his hands. Grabbing his pen from his scrub pocket, his filled out her immunization form, signing the slip and ripping it from the form to give to her "Here is your immunization slip, you can show it to your chain of command if your medpros isn't updated right away."_

_"Thanks again nurse," Ward said with an awkward smile, putting the slip into her pocket "I'm uh… really sorry I'm such a wimp with needles."_

_"It's perfectly fine," Jonouchi waved her concerns off "it's normal. In fact, most of the medics in your unit are probably also scared of needles."_

_"That's… a pretty funny thought." Ward said with a small laugh before her NCO promptly dragged her out._

_Sighing, Jonouchi went into the 'team room' designated for nurses, providers, and whatever medics were assigned to them. Being the only RNA for this particular team, he was the one who had to sign off on a lot of things. Most of his job was actually administrative in nature, scheduling appointments, taking phone calls for soldiers who needed to know their test results, the status of their referrals, and other medical related issues. Usually the LVN's under him were the ones to give shots, but he really needed a break from the desk._

_"You know Mr. Jonouchi," The PA said as she turned in her desk chair in front of her monitor - a female army captain whose name tape on her camouflage scrub top read 'Watson' "PFC Blackburn is being promoted at the end of the day, you should really go to his promotion ceremony."_

_"Is it going to be here?" Jonouchi asked, uncoiling his stethoscope from behind his neck and placing it on his desk. Blackburn was one of the medics who worked under CPT Watsons license, a medic Jonouchi was really fond of because of his upbeat and kind attitude, which reminded him a lot of Yugi._

_CPT Watson shook her head, "It's going to be at his unit headquarters… most of us will be there to support him, he's been in rotation at the clinic for so long that most of his assigned unit doesn't even know him."_

_"What time will it be?" Jonouchi asked as he checked hit watch - it was currently 1:30 in the afternoon and the hospital wasn't going to close until 4:30._

_"1700."_

_Jonouchi hummed; he would be a little out of place being a foreign civilian… but he was fond of Blackburn… and it's not like he had anything planned besides studying for his upcoming microbiology exam, which was a subject he hated anyways "Sure." He told her, right before his phone started ringing. He let it ring twice before answering "Hello, this is the Brooke Army Medical Center, Nurse Jonouchi speaking, this line is unsecure, how may I help you sir, ma'am or sergeant..."_

* * *

_Military formations used to be such an odd sight for Jonouchi; all of these people in the same uniform, standing in any of the same three positions; attention, parade rest and at ease. The highest ranked person in any given row would be the first person in line for that row, and each row had a certain amount of people with everyone spaced equally. He was used to it by now, and just stood in the background with a few other random civilians, and people who weren't part of the unit and therefore not part of the formation._

_Blackburn's face was solemn as he stood at attention in front of everyone else as his commander gave a speech about him and his promotion, but Jonouchi could see the smile in his eyes as everyone was put at the position of attention. The commander and Blackburn's first line supervisor took the Private First Class rank off of his patrol cap and blouse and replaced it with a Specialist rank._

_Everyone was put at ease, and immediately the formation began to chant "Speech, speech!"_

_Blackburn looked like he wanted to make a speech - but quickly shook his head, and Jonouchi guessed it was because he was shy in front of crowds, another thing that reminded him of Yugi._

_One of the guys in the formation raised his hand._

_"You have something to say about Specialist Blackburn, Sergeant Stonewall?"_

_"Yes." A thick accent replied - Jonouchi had a hard time with some of the accents in the USA, but he was pretty sure this one was from one of the Carolina's._

_Sergeant Stonewall, the sergeant who spoke up fell out of the formation and walked up the Blackburn "Not a lot of you know Specialist Blackburn because he's been working up in BAM-C for almost six months," the man began, then turned to face the formation, showing off the staff sergeant rank adorning his blouse; Jonouchi's heart skipped a beat; his wisteria-violet eyes were stunning, light in shade and leaning towards blue in colour, it really complimented his thick crop of coppery-brown hair he sported "as his platoon sergeant, I see a lot of things about this soldier from behind-the-scenes. It's a medics job to care about the health and safety of his battle buddies to his left and right, but he's gone above and beyond. He's helped organize fundraisers with the Family Readiness Group, and been a part of several charities, including blood drives and crowdfunding marathons. And even on an individual level he's shown his selfless-ness, I've never met someone who knows Blackburn that hasn't said he's one of the kindest soldiers in our formation."_

_While Jonouchi was immensely proud of Blackburn, his eyes and his attention were caught by the Staff Sergeant giving him a commendation speech. SSG Stonewall was really tall, and his uniform fit him perfectly, not being too tight or too baggy as was a common problem for a lot of soldiers since their duty uniforms weren't allowed to be tailored. Even as he was addressing the formation, he would still occasionally glance at Blackburn as if to reassure him that all of the good things he was saying about him were heartfelt._

_Jonouchi sure hoped he would stick around after the ceremony was over…_

_"Good job, kid." Jonouchi said to Blackburn as he messed up his dark blue hair in a good-natured noogie._

_"Nurseee." Blackburn complained, but laughed anyways and let him._

_"I see you have a lot more friends than I thought you did." Jonouchi said, looking at all of the people in and out of uniform who were still milling around the general area even after they were released for the day, presumably so they could talk to newly promoted._

_"I don't think I've met your friend, Blackburn." SSG Stonewall said as he walked up to them - now that he was closer Jonouchi could really appreciate the broad and defined features of his handsome face. He had a little bit of a coppery 'shadow' appearing around his chin, and some razor bumps at his pale neck, but it made him appear more rugged but sophisticated at the same time._

_"Oh, yeah," Blackburn stuttered a little as he scrambled to parade rest - Jonouchi knew that Blackburn had a hard time around NCO's, he stayed in 'at ease' position even when Stonewall told him to relax "Sergeant, this is Mr. Jonouchi, he's a nurse at the hospital."_

_"Nice to meet you, Mr. Jonouchi," Stonewall said with a small smile as he presented his hand to shake, which Jonouchi readily took "my name's Anthony Stonewall."_

_"You can just call me Jonouchi."_

_"You can just call me 'Stoney'."_

_Jonouchi stifled a laugh at the pun "Alright, Stoney." He said as he dropped his hand, he saw that Blackburn had shuffled away to a group of other junior enlisted soldiers. "That was a really nice speech you gave, you must be really fond of Blackburn."_

_Stoney nodded "He's a good kid, it's hard to find a genuinely positive soldier around here… There's nothing wrong with most of these soldiers, it's just most of them can't decide if they hate the unit, or if they hate the army." He chuckled._

_"I've noticed, I've never heard so many suicide jokes since I started working for the department of defense." Jonouchi agreed, crossing his arms as he smiled up at the other man._

_"You've got an interesting accent."_

_"So do you - lemme guess, South Carolina?"_

_"North Carolina, pretty close though. I can't place yours, something Asian?"_

_"I'm Japanese."_

_"Interesting since you're so… Well..."_

_"White? Yeah, it is pretty weird huh… My mother and her family are from the United States. I just came here for school and work."_

_"You're a nurse right? CNA or RN?"_

_"I'm an RN right now - I'm trying to be a CRNA."_

_"I'm not familiar with that one."_

_"Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist - I'm only one semester short of finishing all of the classes I need for it."_

_"That's pretty cool."_

_"What about you, Stoney? What's your MOS? You're not a medic like Blackburn otherwise I would have had you complain to me at some point."_

_They didn't even notice how the crowd had thinned almost entirely, all that was left was the team of unfortunate privates who were "hey you"d into clean up after the ceremony._

_"I'm Bravo Companies Supply NCO." Stoney explained, hooking his thumbs in his belt loop; for some reason, American soldiers weren't allowed to put their hands in their pockets._

_"Your pretty young for a staff sergeant." Jonouchi commented - most staff sergeants were at least 26-27, but this one had to be at most 23._

_"I wanted to make staff sergeant really badly - I hated living in the barracks." He explained, and chuckled a bit._

_"Oh - you're not married?" Jonouchi asked bluntly - military people tended to marry early because they had to live in barracks unless if they were married, had a child, or were at least a staff sergeant._

_"They only recently repealed don't ask don't tell..." The soldier explained, trailing off with an edge of sadness in his voice. Jonouchi was confused for a second before he remembered - it was only a year or two ago that the US made gay marriage legal, and even less time since the US military gave same-sex marriages the same benefits as traditional._

_"You're…?"_

_"Yeah." Stoney confirmed, rubbing the back of his neck._

_And suddenly Stoney became at least twice as appealing._

* * *

_ -Back in the Present- _

"Look, Stoney, I know you've got no reason to trust my word right now; but I wasn't cheating on anyone." Jonouchi defended himself as he plopped a tapioca pearl from his tea into his mouth. Stoney was still frowning, and folded his hands in front of himself.

"The timeline doesn't add up, Joey."

"You don't have to call me that anymore."

The American wasn't taking the bait "You don't have to change the subject."

Jonouchi nervously took a big, long swig of his boba tea, drinking almost all of it at once, he looked over the barista and asked her politely in Japanese for a second one.

"Look," Jonouchi said as he wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin to remove the excess tea "whatever we were… It ended a long time ago. I'm a married man now."

"Does your husband know you cheated on him overseas?" Stoney's tone was now accusing and angry, and Jonouchi knew why; soldiers were notorious disgusted by cheating even if they themselves did it, all too many soldiers' marriages were ruined because their spouses were cheating while they were deployed.

" _Anthony_ , please," Jonouchi pleaded, putting his hands in front of him defensively "you know I'd never cheat on anyone."

Stoney wasn't taking any of it though, it was clear on his face "I don't know what I know about you anymore."

"Look, me and Seto have been together for a long time yes, but what I had with you wasn't me getting foreign tail behind his back."

"What was it then? An  _open relationship_?" He practically spat the word 'open' out.

Jonouchi thought quickly; he wanted to be honest with his ex, he really did, he respected Stoney enough to not want to make him feel like a side piece, but the last thing he wanted was jeopardize the meticulous lie around his marriage to Kaiba "We were… on a break at the time."

"A break?"

"Yes."

"A  _break_  isn't the same as a  _break-up_. What was I to you, _Katsuya_?" He pronounced his given name horribly, but the emphasis was not lost on the CRNA.

"I really did like you a lot, Stoney..." Jonouchi answered him, and he was sincere about at least that.

"You told me you loved me." Stoney had to practically squeeze that one out.

Jonouchi couldn't say anything to that.

"That wasn't true was it… you loved someone else, I was just a vacation to you."

"Stoney..."

The tall brunet grimaced, and there was a painful glint in his eyes as he slapped a ¥1 000 bill onto the table, not realizing that tipping was an American exclusive practice. "When I gave you the name Joey, I didn't realize I should have called you Jody instead." He said, and he stood up, and Jonouchi was incapable of saying anything when he turned and left the Cafe, practically stomping out.

Jonouchi was still silent until the barista brought him the second boba tea, once she placed it down he cleared his throat as he looked up at her "Can I get like… three more of these? To-go?"

_To be continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: This was a toughie, but I've been looking forward to it for almost a year. Here we look back into Jonouchi's life when he was still an RN and part-time student. Here we go into a little bit about medicine, the army, and army medicine.
> 
> Along side E&E I'm working on a side project called "Plus 2" which I about 5 chapters in; so I've actually written several chapters of E&E in advanced, so I can continue to post on Sundays and Thursdays.
> 
> Quick notes:
> 
> -In the US, Anthrax is a vaccine given almost exclusively to soldiers only
> 
> -The US army three main types of uniform; the physical readiness uniform, which is basically a black tracksuit, the duty uniform which is the classic 'camouflage' uniform, and the dress blue uniform.
> 
> -The rank structure for enlisted army has specialists and below as the junior enlisted, with corporals and above as non-commissioned officers.
> 
> -For my non-American readers, the 'southern accent' isn't really a thing, at least not in the umbrella phrase of it. Like with any given country, different areas have a local accent, some states or areas having a more prominent accent than others, of the more southern states, North Carolina and South Carolina both have very prominent and distinct accents.
> 
> -Speaking of accents, it isn't stated but Stoney calls Jonouchi 'Joey' plain and simply because he horribly butchers the pronunciation of his Japanese name.
> 
> \- A "Jody" is a term that refers to someone who sleeps with someone else's spouse, usually the wife/girlfriend of a military man while he is deployed.
> 
> Urban dictionary definition of "Jody"
> 
> Jody:The hypothetical man (often a sinister character who decided not to go to boot camp) that is doing your girlfriend/wife while you are on deployment overseas.


	18. Ludus

**Chapter 17: Ludus**

The following two weeks were fraught with worry and guilt and Jonouchi didn't have anyone he could dump these worries into; Ryuzaki was too busy preparing for some big term exam event for his students, and Honda was still ignoring him and even if he wasn't Jonouchi wasn't going to dump all of the drama of his ex being in town on him.

He  _wanted_ to confront Stoney and tell him the truth, but how could he without letting his secret out? And he knew Stoney would never confront Kaiba about this because soldiers were strictly forbidden from starting incidents when they were in a guest country, but that didn't make him wholly safe, because the point was that he had a loose thread from his past hanging that Kaiba didn't know about.

He really should have come clean to Kaiba about it, and if this had happened like a month ago he probably would have. Ever since the night where he admitted to hinting at the truth of their facade to Shizuka, Kaiba had been acting… Weird.

Jonouchi continued his night visits to Kaiba Corp, but rather than them splitting up when Kaiba turned in for the night, the CEO instead had taken to either coming home with him and spending the night, or hanging out for a bit before leaving, he would at the very least drop him off.

It was… Unnerving, at first, to see this type of behavior from Kaiba of all people, frankly Jonouchi was just glad to finally have some company.

Didn't help his worry or guilt though, because the nicer Kaiba was to him, the worse he felt about not talking about Stoney.

"You stiffened up," Kaiba commented as they sat on the couch together in the safehouse, they were currently binging on an English Netflix series called 'The Good Place', subtitled in Japanese because Jonouchi liked having subtitles on and Kaiba had a little bit of a harder time with any rapid-fire spoken language outside of Japanese even with his high level of fluency "do you want me to move?"

Jonouchi tried to keep the anxiety off of his face when he flicked his eyes to his spouse; they weren't sitting five feet apart anymore like they had started, in fact their shoulders were brushing and they were sharing a heated blanket. "Uh..."

"I can move if you want." Did he sound  _disappointed_?

Jonouchi stopped him from removing the blanket from himself and moving away "No, you're fine; and keep that thing on, you have an iron deficiency."

"I do not have an iron deficiency."

"Why do you wear mostly black all year? With full trench coats? And a  _turtleneck._ " Jonouchi inquired "Why are you extremely pale and have racoon eyes? Why are you a complete predatory carnivore around red meat?"

Kaiba didn't answer; just simply rolled his eyes. Jonouchi practically  _knew_ the guy was iron deficient but he stubbornly refused to get a blood test done to prove it. "Why are you so high strung, then?"

"Are  _you_ of all people calling me-"

"You need to learn how to stop deflecting."

Welp. He got him there.

"Fine, I'll give." Jonouchi sighed and paused the show, bringing up his knees to his chest as if to guard himself more "Please don't be mad."

Kaiba quirked his brow "I'm listening..." He did something Jonouchi didn't expect and put a hand on his knee under the blanket. A series of nervous sparks radiated through Jonouchi's body at the  _deliberate_ contact; he thrived off of physical affection, and Kaiba seemed to realize that.

"Iranintomyex."

"...Pardon?"

"HesasoldierandhethinksIcheatedonyouwithhim."

"Slow down. Start from the beginning." Kaiba instructed, squeezing his knee slightly.

Jonouchi sighed deeply, really wishing he had grabbed a glass of water before sitting down "I was dating an American soldier up to eight months before me and you got married." He admitted; a curious look crossed his spouses face, it wasn't angry or disappointed and that enough for Jonouchi "We dated for about six months."

"...Was it serious?" The blond flinched; Kaiba sounded agitated now, but the look in his eyes wasn't exactly  _angry,_ he could have sworn it was jealousy but he couldn't fathom such a thing for Kaiba.

"It was… kinda serious, yeah..."

* * *

" _You know… I've been waiting so long to be allowed to say this to another man. I love you, Joey."_

" _-!"_

* * *

Jonouchi shook the memory away "Anyways, we just kinda drifted apart all of a sudden; I failed my semester of microbiology, lost my full ride and wanted to focus on that instead, and he was due to change duty stations soon anyways."

"Then why is he  _here?_ " Kaiba's voice raised; and Jonouchi couldn't help a flinch as he was reminded of his abusive upbringing.

"He's stationed in the American military base in Okinawa - he must have seen us in the headlines or something and put two-and-two together." The blond deduced.

"I see..." Kaiba's tone was noticeably softer now.

"Look… I'm really sorry I didn't tell you sooner. About the relationship, or about Stoney confronting me; I really didn't want to upset you about the possibility of anyone leaking out the truth, especially after I hinted it to Shizuka. If I makes you feel better, he doesn't know Japanese to save his-"

"What is his name?" The volume of his voice was soft, but there was a noticeable, but unknown edge to it.

"An- _Jackson_  Stonewall." Jonouchi quickly corrected himself "Look, I'll talk to him and maybe-."

"No. Stay away from him."

"...What?" Jonouchi looked at Kaiba confused.

The CEO quickly flicked his eyes downward, as if thinking "If we leave this alone, it will disappear."

"...Really?"

"I've been dealing with all kinds of rumors and 'scandals' on the tabloids ever since I took over Kaiba Corp at twelve. For the longest time, there was chatter that I pushed my stepfather out of a window."

"...I thought he threw himself out of a window?"

"...We met him in the virtual world, you know he disappeared to uploaded his mind into Noah's world."

"Oh yeah." Maybe he spent too much time around anesthetic fumes…

"I digress. The best thing you can ever do about rumors is ignore them. Do not acknowledge, and do not see this man ever again, and there's nothing they can hold against us." Kaiba explained, and Jonouchi thought about it seriously for a minute; it did make sense, it's not like rich and famous people were new to tabloid gossip. In fact, now that he thought about it, he remembered back in the hayday of his dueling career, there were a lot of ' _rumors'_ that Yugi was cheating and was actually two different people.

Of course they couldn't prove that one either, and that one was technically true…

"Huh… I didn't think about it like that." Jonouchi reflected, sliding his legs back down from his chest to the floor. "You know, this is actually pretty chill for you, Kaiba." He remembered how back in the day Kaiba overreacted to even the tiniest hint of a slight against him; he still had Kaiba's screaming fit from when he had to tell him that Yami Yugi lost to Raphael deeply engraved in his memory. Good to see he had calmed down after all of these years.

Kaiba simply nodded and they went back to watching the show, the atmosphere noticeably more relaxed now that Jonouchi had finally gotten all of that off of his chest. Now that he didn't -really- have anything to worry about, he wouldn't need to stress out so much.

Relieved, he just enjoyed the show and the chance to relax. Kaiba was silent, but that was typical of him; Jonouchi made commentary here and there about the show, but would only nod rather than vocalize anything. Around midnight, he started getting drowsy and was too lazy to get up and go to his room so he just 'rested his eyes' for a second which ended as it always did; with him racking out right away.

He found himself shifting over to the closest warm, solid object which he was too tired to acknowledge or care was Kaiba, resting his head on his surprising not-as-bony-as-expected shoulder and resting in place there. He made a complaining noise in the back of this throat when his makeshift 'pillow' moved around, it changed to a more pleased sound when he felt an arm wrap around the back of his neck and shoulder and drag him closer.

The only close to intelligent thought he had was how nice it felt to be held again, so he returned the favor and wrapped both arms around what was holding him.

* * *

It was a really good thing Katsuya was asleep, otherwise he would have definitely seen the bewildered, and flustered expression appear on his husband's face at the return of affection; but that was just the type of person he was, wasn't he, give him an inch and he'll take a mile, at least when it came to anything remotely resembling physical gestures of affection.

The blond was completely asleep, but still managed to have a vice-like grip around his abdomen. Kaiba wouldn't be able to move anything besides his free arm without disturbing him, but that was all he needed.

With his one free arm, he struggled to stay as still as possible as he reached into his pocket to grab his phone, and quickly called his top contact.

" _Yes, Mr.Kaiba?_ " An all-to-familiar and baritone voice greeted from the other end after less than two rings.

"Isono," Kaiba greeted in return, keeping his voice low so he wouldn't wake his husband up and alert him of his current scheme "I want you to do some research on an individual stationed in Okinawa."

" _Name and occupation, sir?_ "

"Jackson Stonewall. He's an American soldier. I want you to find out everything about him that you can."

" _Very well sir._ "

*click*

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: I have a long-running theory that Kaiba is iron deficient and that's why he('s such a bitch) wears trench coats and a turtle neck even when there's full sunlight and everyone else is wearing a t-shirt and light jacket at most. Also, again his favorite food suggests he's a total carnivore, red meat being a big source of iron.
> 
> As you can see here, Jonouchi is much more comfortable around Kaiba. And Kaiba, well, Kaiba is… He has the tendency to go overboard with things. He's attracted to Jonouchi, which wouldn't be such a problem if this weren't literally the only relationship he's ever been in, so he's not exactly obsessed, but he is definitely possessive and prone to jealousy at this stage.


	19. Now Kiss

**Chapter 18: Now Kiss**

"For an intimidating dude, kids sure do love you." Jonouchi told his spouse as they finished their walk through the inpatient ward of the clinic.

"Why do you act so surprised? The majority of the activities my company does is aimed towards children." Kaiba answered, hands in his pockets; he was back in his classic 'Battle City' trench coat get up, complete with the arm bands and all.

As much of a fashion disaster as he was, at least the kids didn't mind that. In fact, they were over the moon to meet the man behind the company that treated their health issues. Kaiba had been mobbed and even jumped on by some of the children, but he didn't get angry or annoyed, in fact he was completely natural about the whole thing, as if it was nothing to get worked up over. He wasn't  _all smiles,_ but he was overall gentle towards the child patients.

Kaiba had a  _sweet_ side after all.

His LVN Ito was at the check in desk along the way towards Jonouchi's office; as soon as she saw the pair together, she wordlessly excused herself elsewhere. Jonouchi sighed heavily; ever since Ito caught him and Kaiba in a compromising position all that time ago, she was convinced that all of Kaiba's visits and walkthroughs were just covers for more conjugal reasons.

It helped with the allusion of their marriage, but it was embarrassing; Jonouchi took his job very seriously, he would never use work hours for boning. He already learned his lesson after using college hours for that.

"You know, since you're here, we should really do a blood draw for you." Jonouchi said as they entered his office, he took off his black scrub top and put it on the coat rack, leaving him in his long-sleeved blue undershirt.

Kaiba tsked and crossed his arms over his chest "You're not still going on about me having low blood iron, are you?"

"Of course I am." Jonouchi affirmed, stacking up the patient charts that had been left on his desk. "I mean,  _all_ of the symptoms line up. That and I made a bet with the radiologist; she's betting it's low blood pressure and I'm betting it's iron deficiency."

"...You're making bets about my health with doctors?"

"It's more common than you think."

"What if it was both?"

"That's a tie. Then we just just return to our point system of ridiculous diagnoses. So far, the podiatrist is the winner." Kaiba wasn't even going to ask, when it came to the subject of feet he was too disgusted to want to hear anything about it.

"I'm not letting you test me, I told you  _I'm fine._ " Kaiba told his husband as he sat down at one of the chairs situated in front of the desk.

"Oh really?" Jonouchi challenged, not looking up from the patient charts "In five minutes, I dare you to stand up really fast and then take five steps."

"I'm not doing dares or bets." Kaiba stated simply.

" _Chicken._ " Jonouchi taunted.

Kaiba didn't take the bait.

"Come onnn." Jonouchi put the paperwork down to look across the desk at his spouse "Are you afraid of needles? Is that it?"

"Of course not."

"Everyones afraid of something - and a lot of people are scared of needles." People with a lot of tattoos, ironically, were usually the  _most_ afraid of needles.

"If you haven't noticed Katsuya, I'm not most people."

Jonouchi sweatdropped "What if  _I_ drew your blood?"

"Is that supposed to be some kind of consolation prize?"

"I'm one of the best nurses we have here for injections and vascular access - the phlebotomist treats patients veins like a game of darts."

"Are you trying to convince me to allow you to take my blood, or fire the phlebotomist?"

"Urgh." Jonouchi rolled his eyes and gave up; maybe another day.

He turned on his PC so he could input his patient charts digitally, and sat there clacking away at the keyboard; in the back of his mind, he was amused that his and Kaiba's roles were reversed from the norm, with him working and Kaiba sitting and waiting.

"There is a sponsored duel monsters event tonight." Kaiba began to explain after a few minutes of silence, looking up from his phone that he had been messing with in the meantime "We are going." It wasn't a request.

"Are we participating?" Jonouchi asked as he peered past his monitor.

"No, we are hosting."

" _We?_ You don't really need me to host with you."

Kaiba sighed a very exasperated sigh "We are  _married._ This a  _public_ event with a lot of  _publicity._ We host  _together._ "

"Ohhh." Jonouchi replied "...I don't have to wear a suit do I?"

"Semi formal would be preferable."

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"No as in fuck no. I hate formal, semi formal, business casual, whatever. I dress for comfort, not style."

"You wear  _scrubs_ all day."

"And you know what scrubs are really fucking comfortable okay. They don't do shit for cold or rainy weather but god dammit they are comfortable and have more pockets than anyone would ever need."

"Do you want to wear scrubs for the event?" Kaiba sounded rhetorical, not realizing the trap he'd walked into.

"...Yes."

"I was kidding."

"I'm not."

"Those are your  _working_  clothes. You're supposed to be hosting."

"The public needs to accept that I'm a working man even when married to you, and my work is being a nurse."

"A least put a white coat or something over it."

Jonouchi automatically balked "I'm not a doctor, lab tech, pharmacist  _or_ med student! Nurses don't wear white coats."

"Well, is there anything you can wear over the scrub top then?" They were just negotiating at this point.

* * *

"-So he tried to punch me with a blade in my mouth right, and in my left pocket there was a soda and-"

"I can't believe you're really wearing hospital wear to an official event." Kaiba cut him off just to dunk on his outfit. Seto Kaiba of all people, the guy with the most dramatically tragic sense of fashion on the face of Domino.

"It's how I am day-to-day, do you want the public to see me as I am, or not? Because them just seeing me as a decent face hanging off of your arm isn't going to help." Jonouchi replied - he was still wearing the same scrub set he'd been wearing at work that day, but he opted to wear his hospital half-zip fleece jacket; it was dark blue, with the light blue hospital logo and name of the clinic on the left side of the chest, and 'Kaiba Katsuya, CRNA' embroidered in the same light blue on the right side.

It was pretty much the only in-regulation thing he ever wore.

"Whatever." Kaiba clicked his tongue.

"So is this supposed to be an official tournament or what? Any titles being held?"

"It's a fundraiser, no official titles."

"Ah, what for? New product or card you're trying to show off?"

"No, it's the final event in a triathlon raising awareness for student suicides."

"-Oh. Wow. That's actually pretty deep."

"Why do you think I'm a monster?" He sounded irked.

"I don't think you're a monster!" Jonouchi exclaimed, putting his hands up defensively "So far, you've been showing me that you're actually pretty great guy, Kaiba, it's just, it's just a lot to take in you know?"

Silence.

Well great. Now Jonouchi felt like a dick.

"Seto."

Jonouchi looked at his spouse confused.

"You're my husband,  _Katsuya_. You'd better get used to using my given name. I've noticed you keep catching yourself trying to say Kaiba in public."

Jonouchi blinked "Uh… Sure, Seto."

Kaiba leaned back in his seat, eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest.

Jonouchi must have still felt like a dick because his heart was pounding in his chest. Or maybe it was because of how weird K-  _Seto_ had been acting lately; he was really getting into this whole fake marriage thing.

* * *

"-And without further instruction, let the tournament begin!" Jonouchi said into the microphone, signalling the crowd of spectators to start cheering. He was pleasantly surprised by the turnout of participants he saw as they finished the cycling and running events that had been going on during most of the day without his knowledge; the catch was that each participant had to wear some model of duel disk while performing the events, as the final event was dueling.

There were hundreds of participants, and this dueling tournament would likely take all night; but Jonouchi didn't mind too much besides the fact that he himself couldn't duel.

There were several new faces, up-and-coming duelists, and even a few familiar faces.

He recognized the back of a very particular duelist right away "Ryuzaki!" Jonouchi called as he jumped off of the stage and ran over to his friend - K- _Seto_ was being distracted by one of the duel officials and didn't notice his husband take off.

"Oh hey Jonouchi." The brunet greeted as he turned - Jonouchi was surprised to see Haga with him, who he hadn't seen once since he returned to Japan.

Haga now wore more reasonable glasses, normal square framed ones instead of the bug themed ones he wore when he was younger. He was taller than Ryuzaki now, being only an inch or two below Jonouchi now, and having a very gangly build for his height. He still had a bowl-like haircut, but it was now more trimmed to be less dramatic to the shape of his head. The two lovers were both wearing tracksuits - Haga's being green-and-black, and Ryuzaki's being lighter green with cream trim. Both of them were sweating, meaning they'd only recently gotten done with the running event. Their duel disks were pristine though, the telltale mark of veteran duelisks.

"Good to finally see you again, Kaiba-san." Haga greeted, extending his hand. Jonouchi took it without flinching this time at the use of the Kaiba surname.

"Babe he still goes by Jonouchi." Ryuzaki chided. Haga clicked his tongue as he removed his hand and stuck it into his track pants pockets

"Oh?" The entomologist inquired, raising a brow.

"It's uh, just what I'm used to." Jonouchi quickly excused "You can still call me Kaiba if you want, but you might have a hard time differentiating between me and my husband."

A flash crossed in Haga's eyes and it almost made Jonouchi reel in how much it reminded him of the old days when they were enemies - bitterness? Why? They were supposed to be cool now-

Oh.

That's right.

Haga and Ryuzaki couldn't get married.

His heart panged with sympathy and wedding band on his finger suddenly felt heavy. Those two  _really_ loved each other, but they weren't rich like Kaiba so they couldn't buy their way past Japan's bigotry.

"Anyways Jonouchi, are you participating?" Ryuzaki asked excitedly, not noticing his boyfriends resentment and friends guilt.

"Erm, no, I'm just hosting with Seto." He explained "I wasn't expecting you two do be here."

"It's a big event..." Haga trailed off, hands still in his pockets.

"This subject means a lot to me," Ryuzaki explained, his suddenly seemed sad, and clasped one of Haga's hands in his own, and his purple eyes turned to the ground "I've lost a few students to suicide."

"W-What? But aren't they just elementary students?" Jonouchi gasped - he knew Japan was notorious for student suicides relating to exams, but that usually pertain the most to high school students, not small children.

"With electronic information being so widely accessible, the pressure on kids to be smarter and more knowledgeable is getting even worse." Ryuzaki explained with a sad sigh "Too many parents are obsessed with the idea of their kid being smarter than a Google search, and that's just too much."

The sad revelation was not lost on Jonouchi. He'd mostly been spared the pressured because his father neglected him and didn't care about his education, if anything it was his friends that influenced him to care about academics more when he was young, but every year after exams it would all be the same - at least one student from each grade would take their lives.

He was brought out of his thoughts by Haga's voice consoling Ryuzaki "It's not your fault." He told him, using his thumb and index finger to lift his chin up.

"I just feel like… I could have done something."

"You're not the one who put all of that pressure on them."

"I know..."

"Well, you two should go grab your ticket number so you can be entered into duels, hope you two don't up competing against each other." Jonouchi excused himself before he could cut into their tender moments more, and walked off awkwardly, looking around.

"Hey, Jonouchi!" He heard a familiar voice; he turned to see Otogi jogging up to him. He was also in a tracksuit, but his was red with black trim

"Oh hey man!" Jonouchi greeted with a smile as Otogi caught up to him "You here to duel too?"

"Of course!" He said, putting his hands on his hips and jutting his hip to one side, "Actually, have you seen Honda?"

"...What?"

"He's should be waiting here with Chokichi." He explained, keeping his head on a swivel to look for his partner and son.

"I didn't even know he was here..." Jonouchi admitted; it wasn't surprising since Honda was definitely avoiding him.

"He shouldn't be too hard to notice- Oh! There we are, come on Jonouchi." Otogi suddenly pivoted and grabbed the CRNA by the arm, dragging him.

"Hey, wait Otogi- I don't think-."

"Hey babe! Glad to find you! And look who I managed to wrangle from Kaiba's greasy paws for a moment?" He heart Otogi say before letting go of Jonouchi's arm. Jonouchi looked up and saw exactly what he had expected but still dreaded.

Hiroto Honda was… exactly as Jonouchi had left him, no joke. Same height, same muscular build, same faux hawk, the only difference between Honda now, and Honda from graduation, was the faint lines under his eyes and creasing his forehead.

Oh, and the stroller at his feet, where their toddler son Chokichi was sitting, playing with a stuffed cow.

"... _Kaiba_." Honda greeted, looking down at Jonouchi with a detached look on his face, even as his boyfriend kissed his cheek with a smack. Jonouchi wasn't going to let his childhood friend intimidate him though, and narrowed his eyes in return as he stuck his hands into his fleece jacket.

"You two probably have some catching up to do." Otogi rambled cheerfully, seemingly unaware of the tension between the two, and began unbuckling his and Honda's son from the stroller, who began to babble at the attention "Me and Chokichi are just going to grab a ticket number, aren't we little man? We'll be right back." He held his son on his hip as he walked away to the kiosk machines where duelists were drawing their numbers.

Dark brown and golden brown eyes stared each other down, but neither men backed down from the other.

"...It's good to finally see you again," Jonouchi began, taking a step forward to his childhood friend, who didn't move even as he put a hand on his arm "Hiroto."

"Why are you here?" Honda asked coldly.

"I'm hosting-" The blond didn't get the chance to finish

"No. Why are you back in  _Domino?_ " Honda demanded, raising his voice "You leave without warning after graduation, don't say a word to nobody, and all of a sudden you're back in Japan  _married_ to  _Seto Kaiba?_ " He wrenched his arm away from Jonouchi and took a step back, returning them to the distance they had between them earlier. "Last time I checked you  _hated_ Kaiba."

His tone was accusatory, and Jonouchi knew he would have a lie no matter how much he wished he didn't have to "You knew I liked guys too, Honda." He pointed out.

"That's not the point." He refuted "You fuck off to America without warning; and pretend Domino, and your friends, were just a memory. All of a sudden you come back, and for what? For some rich prick you used to hate?"

"My spouse isn't a prick!" Jonouchi almost shouted, and had to bite his lip to prevent himself from making a scene "Honda, you-"

Honda put his hand up to make him pause "If you're about to say I know you, you may want to re-evaluate that,  _Jonouchi._ Because I used to think I did, but that was up until you decided that professional dueling was off the table, and being an American nurse was on."

Jonouchi clenched his first "So this is how it's going to be, is it?" He challenged; Honda raised his chin up, glaring down at him.

"I was there for you since elementary school, Jou." He began, his voice bitter "I was there for you even when you were being a rebellious fuckwad. How many times did I scrape your ass off the pavement like bubblegum after your dad or Hirutani decided to chew you up and spit you out?" Jonouchi's fist started shaking; the last thing he wanted to remembered was his checkered past "I wasn't like you Jonouchi, but I was still there for you. I thought we could be there for each other even as adults, but I was wrong." He huffed and grabbed the handle of the stroller, pushing it in the direction that Otogi and Chokichi had gone.

"Don't you dare act like the lack of communication was all on me, Honda." Jonouchi called after him, making the brunet stop in his tracks "You never told me you got together with Otogi, hell you never even told me you liked  _guys._ "

Honda looked angrily over his shoulder "Not all of us can  _buy_ acceptance, you know." He spat; Jonouchi was at a loss for words as his  _former_ friend left him standing there.

Was… was that what this was about?

It wasn't just that Jonouchi had left with little to no notice all of those years ago?

It was because Honda had a relationship and family with another man, but couldn't get married?

Yes… Yes, as much as it hurt Jonouchi, it  _made sense._ Honda and Haga were the same; they had both been in loving relationships for  _years,_ but Jonouchi got married to someone he used to hate when they couldn't because his spouse happened to be wealthy.

His heart sank, and he felt like he was disconnected from his body.

He lost he best friend because of a sham marriage.

He must have stood there, standing completely still for at least a minute with a blank, when a hand landing on his shoulder from behind brought him back to the present. "There you are," he heard Seto say, sounding irked "don't go running off like- oof!" The brunet was forced to stumble back about half a step when his husband whirled around and slammed his face against his chest to hide into it.

Shocked, Seto hovered his arms over Jonouchi, unsure at first, but then slowly closed them around him in an embrace, looking around to make sure they weren't making a scene. Luckily, the general crowd was too focused on tickets and upcoming matches.

"What's wrong?" The CEO asked, and Jonouchi was impressed - he really did make himself sound concerned. He would have to commend him on his acting eventually.

" _We're cunts._ " Was all Jonouchi could mumble, muffled against the fabric of Seto's shirt. He was close to crying.

Still confused, Seto rubbed his back for a second and looked around for some kind of escape route so they wouldn't be drawing unnecessary attention. "Come on," he said, keeping an arm over his husbands back as he lead him away "we need to find somewhere more private." Jonouchi didn't fight him, just let him.

* * *

"So they're bitter. Because unlike us, they're not married?" Seto inquired, handing his husband yet another tissue. They were in the back of the limo, which thankfully was sound proof and had fully tinted windows, giving them much needed privacy

Jonouchi nodded, having mostly calmed down. He accepted the tissue and tried up his face; it was obvious from the redness that he'd been crying but at least the tears had stopped running "It's not fair, K- _Seto,_ they really love each other; but they can't be married because society as a whole doesn't accept them."

"By extension, they don't accept  _us_ either." Seto reminded him. Jonouchi let out a bitter snort.

"You only wanted to marry me so other business men would leave you alone.." Jonouchi reminded him, sounding cross, and Seto had the social graces to shut up. "We're only  _legally_ married because you paid for it; nothing they do will ever be good enough."

Seto let him sniffle and blow into the tissue before he spoke up again "What if I got certificates for them too?" It wasn't  _entirely_ out of the realm of possibility, the local government wasn't exactly hard to bribe.

"You don't get it," Jonouchi sighed "it's not  _just_ them; there's millions of gay people in Japan, but none of them are  _allowed_  the ease of marriage like their straight friends. Don't you see? Their struggles aren't limited to just them." He tried to explain.

"There's nothing I can do about that."

"I  _know._ " Jonouchi replied, "Don't you get it? It doesn't matter how openly gay  _you_  are; you can sing an Elton John song, dancing in a dildo factory, wearing nothing but a candy g-string, and waving around a rainbow flag;  _no one_ can touch you. Ryuzaki works with children, if he doesn't keep his relationship low-profile, he could potentially lose his job and livelihood. It just, it's not fair Seto."

"That's not my fault."

"I'm not saying it is damn it. It's just… it's not right." He finished, resting against Seto's side. The CEO allowed it, even putting an arm around him.

"Look..." Seto said, brushing Jonouchi's bangs out of his face, which would have surprised him if he weren't too exhausted from the emotional overload "You stay here. I'll come back when it's time for closing ceremonies, do you think you have the capacity to cohost by then?"

Jonouchi just mutely nodded.

* * *

A few hours had passed, and Jonouchi stressfully racked out; it was the kind of sleep that only seemed to exhaust him even more, but at least gave him a break from his thoughts.

Seto came to grab him as promised, it was close to dawn by then. Jonouchi straightened up his appearance best he could and walked out with him to the main stage.

As his spouse was giving closing speeches and thanked all those who participated in the fundraiser, delving deep into the deep subject matter of student suicide, Jonouchi wasn't able to focus on the subject at hand, and instead watched the crowd. There were participants, their friends and family who came to support them and the cause, and several news crews who had been covering the event since it started.

All of those smiling faces. They seemed so placid down there, but what kind of people were they really? How many of them saw a gay couple and didn't want them to exist in any capacity? How many supported the idea of gay marriage being banned? How many of them knew Seto Kaiba was married to another man, but ignored that entirely? Treated a famous gay marriage like it was nothing more than the title of a tabloid instead of a real marriage?

How many of them saw them together and assumed it was some phase?

"Do you have anything to say to crowd, Katsuya?" Seto asked, as he looked over his shoulder at his silent spouse.

How many of them blatantly refused to accept gays?

"No, honey." Jonouchi said, walking up to his spouse and lifting his chin up with his thumb and index finger like he saw Haga do earlier. He saw confusion swimming in Seto's eyes; Jonouchi smiled up at him, and for the first time in a while the smile reached his eyes "I have nothing to say."

He gently pulled Seto's chin down and put his free arm over Seto's neck, wrenching him down softly, Jonouchi continued to stare into those admittedly gorgeous blue eyes as he kissed him for the first time.

' _Refuse to accept this, bigots.'_ Jonouchi thought, wrapping his other arm over his  _husband's_ neck.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: I don't like to talk about my life over fanfiction, but I'll say at least that my job is a medical type. And in my experience, the people who hate needles the most are people with a lot of tattoos. I'm speaking generally, I don't mean every single person who's inked. I myself, no tattoos, am afraid of needles despite being medical, and usually just do my own shots.
> 
> Yes, after two years and almost 20 chapters, they finally kissed! I'm not going to lie, I almost had Jonouchi kiss Kaiba back when Mokuba saw them in the bathroom, but I'm sooo glad I saved that milestone for this. Jonouchi's pissed and he wants to make a statement to society; gay couples exist and they don't deserve to be forced to hide.
> 
> The importance of the last sentence is that, this is probably the first time Jonouchi has unironically called Seto his husband.
> 
> You know, with all of these stressful situations and dramatic confrontations in a relatively short period of time, Jonouchi may need to start taking blood pressure medicine or something, or maybe counseling. I mean, he must have gone years without crying and then he gets married and suddenly he's crying like every other week.
> 
> Ironically, Kaiba is the least problematic person in Jonouchi's life right now.


End file.
